New Bottles For New Wine

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WfNE

By the Same Author

ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST
ESSAYS IN POPULAR SCIENCE
jiNTS

BIRD-WATCHING AND BIRD-BEHAVIOUR

i

AFRICA VIEW

WHAT* DARE I THINK?

A SCIENTIST AMONG THE SOVIETS^

T. H. HUXLEY'S DIARY OF THE VOYAGE
OF H.M.S. "RATTLESNAKE"

DEMOCRACY MARCHES

THE UNIQUENESS OF MAN

£N LIVING IN A REVOLUTION

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 1893-1943
(with T. H. huxley)

MAN IN THE MODERN WORLD

SOVIET GENETICS AND WORLD SCIENCE

EVOLUTION IN ACTION

FROM AN ANTIQUE *LAND

KINGDOM OF THE BEASTS

(with w. suschitzky)

NEW BOTTLES
FOR NEW WINE

ESSJTS BY
JULIAN HUXLEY

M.A., ID.Sc, F.R.S.

CtLATTO & WINDU§
LONDON

PUBLISHED BY
CHATTO AND WINDUS LTD.
LONDON
*

CLARKE, IRWIN AND CO. LTD.
TORONTO

I! V

JULIAN HUXLEY

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AY T. AND A. CONSTABLE L*t D.
EDINBURGH

CONTENTS

Preface page 1 1

Transhumanism 1 3

A Re-definition of Progress 1 8

Man's Plate and Role in Nature 41

Evolution, Cultural and Biological 6 1

New Bottles for New Wine: Ideology and

Scieiitific Knowledge 93

New Light on Heredity 128

Life's Improbable Likenesses 137

Natural History in Iceland 155

Population and Hum#n Fulfilment 168

What Do We Know About Love? 213

The Bearing of Scientific Knowledge on Belief

in a Fre£ Society 233

Knowledge, Morality, and Destiny 245

Evolutionary Humamsm 279

Index 313

ILLUSTRATIONS
CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS

life's improbable likenesses
{between pages 144^45)

Corystes cassh>e/aunus\ Protective resemblance: \

Japanese Heike crab j Peppered moth larva, Leaf insects)

Heteronotus with fake ant] Hornet clearwing moth)
Reaf and fake ants f Reversed butterfly |

Hawkm»th (Xanfhopan)\ Garden carpet moth)
resembling bark J resembling lichen f

Protective resemblance: ) Mimicry: ]
Lithops, Eremocharis J Fly orchid, Alligator bug[

The Leaf-fish, Monocirrhus polycanthus page 142

The Nightjar, Nyctibius griseus, brocading 147

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

distribution of land animals in the main zoo-geographical

regions of the world 158

Breeding distribution of the Loon or Qreat Northern I>ivcr 159

Breeding distribution of the Little Auk (arctic) and the

Gannet (north temperate) 161

Breeding distribution of the Great Skua 162

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

World population density 169

Estimated increase of world population since the dawn_of
# civilization 1 7 1

EstfmatecPgrowth of world population since 6000 B.C., 172

ILLUSTRATIONS, CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS

Rate of increase of world population page 173

Average length of life in North America and Britain, and in

Asia 175

Birth, death and natural' increase rates in the United States

of America, 1916-53 .176

Distribution of the population of England and Wales by age-
groups; 1 85 1, 1 901 177

Stages of the population cycle in different regions 180

Distribution of world pppulation according to average daily

supply of calories 1 83

World distribution of calorics per head 1 84

Growth of world consumption of energy, 1 860-1920 197

<

Annual consumption of energy and annual incomes in North

America, Blitain and Asia 198

Birth, death and natural increase rates in Japan, 1920-23 2 °i

Estimated annual birth and death rates in India, 1881-1923 203

8

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many of the essays in this volume were originally composed
as lectures, while others have appeared in journals. I have to
thank the publishers of the journals and those who invited
rne to give the lectures for permission to reproduce them in
toto or in amplified form. In particular, for A Re-Definition
of Progress Unesco and Messrs. Allan Wingate; for
Man's Place and Role in Nature University of Columbia ;
for Evolution, Cultural and Biological Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research^ Inc. and University
of Chicago Press ; for New Bottles for New Wine Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland \ for
Life's Improbable Likenesses Life Magazine; for Natural
History in Iceland Smithsonian Institution; for Population
and Human Fulfilment Scientific American; for What
Do We Know About Love? Look; for The Bearing of
Scientific Knowledge on Belief in a Free Society
University of Oregon; for Knowledge, Morality, and
Destiny William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation and
Psychiatry; for Evolutionary Humanism (Dyason Lecture,
1953) Australian Institute of International Affairs. This last
lecture has been incorporated in modified form in a revised
edition of my "Religion Without Revelation", published
'earlier this year by Messrs. Max Parrish.

I also have to thank Dr. Cott and Messrs. Methuen and
C<3. Ltd. fcfr permission to reproduce from hi^ "Adaptive
Coloration in Animals" the drawings which appear on pp.
142 and 147, and the illustrations of the Hawkmoth, Garden
carpet moth and Eremocharis between pp. 144-145; PEP
{Political and Economic Planning) and Messrs. Allen and
Unwin Ltd. for the diagrams from "World Population and
Resources" on pp. 169, 173, 176, 177, 180, 183, 184, 197,
and 201 ; Scientific American for the diagram on p. 1 72 ; The
Observer for the diagrams on pp. 175 anti "98; and Mr.
K. Davis and Princeton University Press for the diagram
from "The Population of India and Pakistan" whfch appears
t>n p.203.

A

9

PREFACE

If asked to name the most remarkable developments of the
present century, I suppose that lyiost people would say the
automobile and the aeroplane, or the cinema, the radio and
*TV, or the release of atomic energy, or perhaps penicillin
and the antibiotics. My answer would be something quite
different — man's unveiling of the .face and figure of the
reality of which he forms a part, the first picture of human
destiny in its true outlines.

This new vision is based upon the enlargement of know-
ledge, not only or even mainly (as laymen and I fear also
many scientists seem to think) in the natural sciences, but
equally in the social sciences and the humanities.

During my lifetime, I have seen its gradual emergence,
piece by piece. There was the discovery that^toms are not
the ultimate units of matter, leading on to a coherent and
comprehensive theory, first of matter, and then, through
radiation studies, quantum theory and atomic physics, of
matter and energy together; and the discoveries of physio-
logy and medical science — hormones and vitamins, chemo-
therapy and antibiotics, the mechanism of nervous action
and of muscular contraction, and many others — leading to a
coherent and comprehensive picture of the working of the
1)ody in health and disease.

There was the rediscovery of Mendelism, leading on to a
complete and comprehensive theory, first of heredity and
then of organic evolution ; and the" discoveries of psychology,
human and comparative — repression and the Unconscious,
the measurement of intelligence and temperament, condi-
tioned reflexes and Gestalt perception, the language of bees,
the homing of birds and the behaviour of apes — leading
towards a comprehensive picture of the evolution, the indi-
vidual development and the working of mind. #

There was the fliscovery of unsuspected" ancient civiliza-
tions, like those of Crete and the Indus Valley, and the
general pushing back of history until it met and fused with
ftie flood of new knowledge pouring in from prehistory,
archaeology, .and palaeontology, so leading to a coherent

II

PREFACE

view of human development as a whole; and also the rise of
a more scientific and more universal history with its special-
ized subdivisions — social and economic history, art history,
history of scienc^, history of religions, and the rest — leading
towards a comprehensive picture of civilized man's social
and cultural evolution.

There have been the discoveries of exploration— on our
earth, the attainment of the Poles, the ascent of Everest, the
revelations of the bathysphere and the aqualung; and be-
yond it, the astronomers' astonishing exploration of space
aiid its galaxies — leading to a more complete knowledge of
our planet, and to a new and awe-inspiring picture of its
place in the cosmos.

There have been all the applications of science, leading
to a new and more comprehensive view of man's possible
control of nature. But then there was the rediscovery of the
depths and horrors of human behaviour, as revealed by Nazi
extermination camps, Communist purges, Japanese treat-
ment of captives, leading to a sobering realization that man's
control over nature applies as yet only to external nature : the
formidable conquest of his own nature remains to be achieved.

Finally, there has been the amassing of facts about the
world's resources and their consumption, and about human
numbers and their rate of increase, leading to another sobering
realization — that resources are limited, and that population
must be limited if man is not to turn into a cancer of the planet!

From these bits and pieces of new knowledge, new realiza-
tions and new understandings, man is capable of forming a
new picture of himself, of his place in nature, his relations
with the rest of the universe, his role in the universal cosmic
process — in other words, his destiny ; and on that, in turn,
building new and more adequate beliefs.

During the post-war decade, I have found myself impelled
to explore this formidable field, now from one angle, now
from anothej. The present volume consists mainly of a
selection from this series of tentative explorations. I am the
first to acknowledge the gaps and inadequacies which they
represent* but yet feel some assurance that my efforts have
led me in the main in the right direction, and indicated somfe
useful patterns of thought and belief.

12

TRAN'SHUMANISM

As a result of a thousand milliQn years of evolution, the
J\ universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to under-
stand something of its past history and its possible future.
This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny
fragment of the universe — in a fe&r of us human beings.
Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the
evolution oY conscious living creatures on the planets t>f
other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened
before.

Evolution on this planet is a history of the realization of
ever new possibilities by the stuff of which earth (and the
rest of the universe) is made — life; strength, speed and
awareness ; the flight of birds and the social polities of bees
and ants ; the emergence of mind, long before man was ever
dreamt of, with the production of colour, beauty, communi-
cation, maternal care, and the beginnings of intelligence and
insight. And finally, during the last few ticks of the cosmic
clock, something wholly new and revolutionary, human
beings with their capacities for conceptual thought and
language, for self-conscious awareness and purpose, for
accumulating and pooling conscious experience. For do not let
\is forget that the human species is as radically different from
any of the microscopic single-celled animals that lived a
thousand million years ago as they were from a /ragmen t of
stone or metal.

The new understanding of the universe has come about
through the new knowledge amassed in the last hundred
years — by psychologists, biologists, and other scientists, by
archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians. It has defined
man's responsibility and destiny — to be an agent for the rest
of the world in the job of realizing its inherent potentialities
as fully as possible.

It is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing
director of the biggest business of all, the busines # s of evolu-
tion — appointed without being asked if he wanted it, and
without proper warning and preparation. What is more, he

I3

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

can't refuSe the job. Whether he wants to or not, whether he
is cbnscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact
determining the future direction of*evolution on this earth.
That is his inescapably destiny, and the sooner he realizes
it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned.

What the job really boils down to is this — the fullest,
realization of man's possibilities, whether by the individual,
by the community, or by the species in its processional ad-
venture along the corridors of time. Every man-jack of us
begins as a mere speck of potentiality, a spherical and
microscopic egg-cell. During the nine months before birth,
this automatically unfolds into a truly miraculous range of
organization: after birth, in addition to continuing auto-
matic growth and development, the individual begins to
realize his mental possibilities — by building up a person-
ality, by developing special talents, by acquiring knowledge
and skills of various kinds, by playing his part in keeping
society going. This post-natal process is not an automatic or
a predetermined one. It may proceed in very different ways
according to circumstances and according to the individual's
own efforts. The degree to which capacities are realized can
be more or less complete. The end-result can be satisfactory
or very much the reverse: in particular, the personality may
grievously fail in attaining any real wholeness. One thing is
certain, that the well-developed, well-integrated personality
is the highest product of evolution, the fullest realization'
we know of in the universe.

The first Shing that the human species has to do to prepare
itself for the cosmic office to which it finds itself appointed
is to explore human nature, to find out what are the possi-
bilities open to it (including, of ctourse, its limitations,
whether inherent or imposed by the facts of external nature).
We have pretty well finished the geographical exploration of
the earth; we have pushed the scientific exploration of
nature, both tffeless and living, to a point at which its main
outlines have become clear; but the exploration of human
nature anc| \ts possibilities has scarcely begun. A vast New
World of uncharted possibilities awaits its Columbus.

The great men of the past have given us glimpses pi wh&t
is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual under-

14

TRANSH UM ANISM

standing, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But
these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. f \^e need to
explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as
the realm of physical geography has boen explored and
mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living?
,Whit can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the
ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment;
to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experi-
ence (after all, one can acquire the ^technique of dancing or
tennis, so vtfiy not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?); to
develop native talent and intelligence in the growing chilci,
instead of frustrating or distorting them? Already we know
that painting and thinking, music and mathematics, acting
and •science can come to mean something very real to quite
ordinary average boys and girls — provided only that the
right methods are adopted for bringing out the children's
possibilities. We are beginning to realize that? even the most
fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most
human beings develop not more than a small fraction of
their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human
race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized
possibilities, a challenge to thetspirit of exploration.

The scientific and technical explorations have given the
Common Man all over the world a notion of physical possi-
bilities. Thanks t8 science, the under-privileged are coming
to believe that no one need be underfed or chronically
diseased, oj deprived of the benefits of its technical and
practical applications.

The world's unrest is largely due to this new belief.
People are determined not to put up with a subnormal
standard of physical health and material living now that
science has revealed the possibility of raising it. The unrest
will produce some unpleasant consequences before it is
dissipated; but it is in essence a beneficent unrest, a dynamic
force which will i^ot be stilled until it has. laid the physio-
logical foundations of human destiny. #

Once we have explored the possibilities open to.conscious-
jiess and personality, and the knowledge of them has become
commctfi property, a new source of unrest will have emerged.
Peopje will -realize and # believe that if proper measures are

15

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

taken, no' one need be starved of true satisfaction, or con-
demned to ^sub-standard fulfilment. This process too will
begin by being unpleasant, and erid by being beneficent.
It will begin by^destrpying the ideas and the institutions
that stand in the way of our realizing our possibilities (or
even deny that the possibilities are there to be realised),,
and will go op by at least making a start with the actual
construction of true human destiny.

Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes
described it, "nasty, brutish and short"; the grpat majority
of human beings (if th?y have not already died young) have
been afflicted with misery in one form or another — poverty,
disease, ill-health, over-work, cruelty, or oppression. They
have attempted to lighten their misery by means of their
hopes and their ideals. The trouble has been that the hopes
have generally, been unjustified, the ideals have generally
failed to correspond with reality.

The zestful but scientific exploration of possibilities and
of the techniques for realizing them will make our hopes
rational, and will set our ideals within the framework of
reality, by showing how much of them are indeed realizable.

Already, we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands
of possibility exist, and that the piresent limitations and
miserable frustrations of our existence could be in large
measure surmounted. We are already justified in the con-
viction that human life as we know it in history is a wretched
makeshift, rooted in ignorance; and that it could be tran-
scended by a state of existence based on the illumination of
knowledge and comprehension, just as our modern control
of physical nature based on science transcends the tentative
fumblings of our ancestors, that wertf rooted in superstition
and professional secrecy. (

To do this, we must study the possibilities of creating a
more favourable social environment, as we have already done
in large measure with our physical environment. We shall
start from new premisses. For instance, that beauty (some-
thing to enjoy and something to be proud of) is indispensable,
and there/ore that ugly or depressing towns are immoral;
that quality of people, not mere quantity, is what we mu$t
aim at, and therefore that a concerted policy is required to

TRANSHUMANISM

prevent the present flood of population-increase frfim wreck-
ing all our hopes for a better world; that true understanding
and enjoyment are ends*in themselves, as well as tools for or
relaxations from a job, and that thgrefore^we must explore
and make fully available the techniques of education and
self-education; that the most ultimate satisfaction comes
from a depth and wholeness of the inner life^ and therefore
that we muSt explore and make fully available the techniques
of spiritual development; above toll, that there are two
complementary parts of our cosmic duty — one to ourselves,
to be fulfilled in the realization jind enjoyment of otir
capacities, the other to others, to be fulfilled in service to the
community and in promoting the welfare of the generations
to cfcme and the advancement of our species as a whole.

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself —
not just sporadically, an individual here yi one way, an
individual there in another way, but in ks entirety, as
humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps
transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but trans-
cending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for
his human nature.

"I believe in transhumanisgi" : once there are enough
people who can truly 5ay that, the human species will be on
the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from
ours as ours is from that of Pekin man. It will at last be
consciously fulfilling its real destiny.

17

€ A RE-DEFINITION of

PROGRESS

Mythology fills a necessary place in the histofy ofi
human ideas. It arises when man first demands some
explanation of the strange surroundings in which he finds
himself, some comprehensible guidance in the frightening
chaos. The human mind has not at this stage been able to
penetrate beyond the* surface of things, to discover the
deeper relations of events, or to illuminate the dark con-
fusion with the light of science. Myth is thus a rationaliza-
tion ; it is an ad hoc support framed by our intellect to sustain
our existence, and the formation of myths is bpund to
continue in any domain so long as our desire to know and to
understand is confronted and overtopped by our ignorance.

In later stages, however, mythology is inevitably modified
by new knowledge and experience, and in the long run
becomes supplanted by science. Science may not be able to
give ultimate explanations, but at least it can, as time passes
and knowledge accumulates,* provide rational understanding.
The myth is thus eventually replaced by the scientific de-
scription, the comprehensible account of the facts of nature.
The making of myths has thus not been* confined to early,
stages in the development of man's ideas. Some myths, like
that of Nordic racialism, or, as we shall shortly, see, of pro-
gress, are cfiiite recent. Although some myths are no more
than primitive fairy-tales, others are so profound in their
intuition that they can continue to serve a valuable function
long after their literal truth has been discarded. Thus in the
myth of the Fall of Man, Reinhold Niebuhr x t rightly finds
profundities and subtleties which are still capable of showing
up the inadequacy of some of to-day's cruder so-called
scientific approaches.

Yet eveij if myths can be stretched to include new
scientific knowledge, as the myth of the Fall can be stretched

1 Niebuhr, R., An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, S.C.M. Press,*
London, 1936.

18

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

to include the facts of Freudian psychology, even if they
may retain a value long after their original crude rationaliza-
tion has ceased to have* a meaning, there yet comes a time
when it is desirable to reject and demolish them, to start
building a wholly new scaffolding for the human mind,
on the frank basis of naturalistic description and scientific
method.

This tinffe of rejection is approaching for the mythology
of man's destiny. There are many different sectors of myth-
ology — myths of creation, those cosmic Just So Stories;
myths of magic and power, peopling this world with spirits
or some other Olympian world with the high gods of poly-
theism; myths of death and the hereafter; myths of nature,
deaHng with sun and stars, with thunder and eclipse, with
the seasons and the fertility of crops; myths of sex and repro-
duction ; myths of good and evil. But the njyths of human
destiny, though often intertwined with other.subjects, have
always taken a large place. By myths of human destiny, I
mean all those fabulations which purport to give man, both
as individual and as race or species, an explanatory picture
of his life in relation to its setting, to rationalize the process
of change we see everywhere bgth in and around us, and to
indicate (sometimes optimistically, sometimes the reverse,
but at least comprehensibly) the relation between human
desire and purpose on the one hand and cosmic chaos and
indifference on the other.

One such myth is that of metempsychosis in all its varied
forms; it becomes most expressly a myth of dtstiny when
linked with the doctrine of Karma. Another is that of the
Golden Age, an ideal state from which man has fallen,
whether through his *own fault or not. Its most modern
embodiment, I suppose, was Rousseau's idea of the noble
savage, though a less radical version is found in the glorifica-
tion of ancient Greece as the apogee of human achievement.
All ideas of belonging to a Chosen People Mfhich one day
shall accomplish jfreat things for or in the world are myths
of this general type. So, of course, are all the fragments of
classical mythology dealing with that problem of At6 or
iDoom yhich so concerned the Greeks. At almost every level
of culture wp could discover myths of this general nature.

1 9

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

One of the myths of human destiny is that of progress.
Prdfessor Bury in an interesting book 1 has shown how recent
has been the growth of this idea.* Apart from temporary
flickers, it dates Jback no earlier than the Reformation. Its
rise was undoubtedly connected with that of modern science,
which, following on the great explorations, revealed not #
only new realms of possible knowledge, but new possibilities
of control over culture.

The myth of progress has taken two main forms, which
have sometimes remained separate, sometimes been inter-
twined. One is the myth of millenary progress, the other of
its inevitability. Millenary progress is the myth of the Golden
Age in reverse. It asserts that if only man gets rid of some
old obstacle or creates some well-defined and realizable«new
social mechanism, humanity will leap forward to a Utopian
state of general well-being and happiness. The eighteenth-
century apostles of revolution believed that what was needed
was the abolition either of kings or of priests (or preferably
of both). Some of the more zealous apostles of the nineteenth-
century industrial revolution believed that what was needed
was to make the applications of nineteenth-century science
available to everybody, and tp teach everybody the three R's :
if these conditions could be fulfilled, then everything — to
put it rather crudely — would be All Right. Inevitable pro-
gress, on the other hand, is an optimistic reversal of the grim
Greek myth of At£, or of the pessimistic Christian doctrine*
of predestination. It asserts that, the nature of the world and
of man beiijg what it is, human progress is inevitable, and
more particularly that it will inevitably be both smooth and
rapid, now that man has become scientific.

In our Western world the myth •of progress has now
fallen on evil days. It was attacked in general terms by Bury
in his previously-cited book, and by many writers since then
on the more specific grounds that the idea of progress cannot
be reconciled jvith the retrogressions of Fascism and Nazism
and the horrors of the recent war. Amoflg its most recent
assailants is* my brother Aldous. 2 He refers, for instance, to

1 Bury, J. B., The Idea of Progress, Macmillan, London, 1920. %

2 Huxley, Aldou9, The Perennial Philosophy, Harper, New YfflJh JCiA g
Chatto & Windus, London, 1946.

9P

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

"the apocalyptic religion of Inevitable Progress [whose]
creed is that the Kingdom of Heaven is outside you and in
the future" and wants* to "bully nature into" subserving
ill-considered temporal ends, at variance ^ith the final end
of men" (which he describes as "unitive knowledge of the
Divine Ground of being"). Elsewhere he says that "the
religion of Inevitable Progress ... is, in the last analysis, the
hope and faith (in the teeth of all human experience) that one
can get something for nothing".

Thus according to the more sweeping of these critics, the
idea of progress is not only a myth, but a bad myth. A goad
myth is one which, while frankly and inevitably unscientific,
yet, with the aid of intuition and everyday experience and
common sense, still manages to embody truth. But a bad myth
is merely erroneous, and should be discarded as dangerous.

Mearfwhile, however, the patient labours ^of the students
of evolution, whether stellar evolution, biological evolution,
or social evolution, have revealed that progress is not myth
but science, not an erroneous wish-fulfilment, but a fact.
On the other hand, progress as a scientific doctrine reveals
itself as very different from progress as a mythical dogma.

The scientific doctrine of progress is destined to replace
not only the myth of progress, out all other myths of human
earthly destiny. It will inevitably become one of the corner-
stones of man's theology, or whatever may be the future
substitute for theology, and the most important external
support for human ethics. There has not yet been time to
work it out'in detail; indeed, a number of fact* relevant to
its elaboration still await discovery. But its broad lines are
now clear. It will be my purpose here to set forth some of its
consequences and implications, with special reference to the
intellectual and moral urgencies of the world at this moment
of history. For it is all too clear that humanity's present
situation, as seen in evolutionary perspective, is a crucial one,
balanced upon one of the recurrent knife-edg^s of change.

I will confine Ayself to quoting a brief summary of our
present position of evolutionary theory on fhe subject.
Evolution in the broad sense denotes all the historical pro-
fcesses of change and development at work in the universe:
in fact/it is the universe, historically regarded. It is divisible

21

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

into three very different sectors — the inorganic or lifeless,
thenorganfc or biological, and the psychosocial or human.
The inorganic sector is by far the greatest in extent. On the
other hand, the ;nethods by which it changes are almost
entirely those of mere physical interaction, and the highest
rate of evolution so slow as to be almost beyond our compre-
hension, the "life" of a star being of the appalling order of 4
magnitude of I o 12 years — a British as against a mere American
billion.

The biological sector is very much more limited in extent;
however, with the emergence of the two basic properties of
living matter — self-reproduction and variation (mutation) —
a new and much more potent method of change became
available to life, in the shape of natural selection. As a result
the possible rate of evolution was enormously speeded up.
Thus the entire evolution of life, from its pre-cellulaV origins
to man, has taken little more than 2x io 9 years, and quite
large changes, such as the evolution of the fully specialized
horses from their small and generalized ancestors, or that
of the first true birds from reptiles, have been achieved in
periods which are nearer io 7 than io 8 years.

Finally there is the human sector. This is still further
restricted in extent, being confined to the single species,
Homo sapiens. But once more a new and more efficient
method of change is available. It becomes, available through
man's distinctively human properties of speech and con-'
ceptual thought. Objectively speaking, the new method
consists of #> cumulative tradition, forming the basis 'of
that social heredity by means of which human societies and
cultures maintain themselves and develop. But it also has a
subjective aspect. Cumulative tradition, like all other dis-
tinctively human activities, is largely based on conscious
processes, on knowledge and purpose, on conscious feel-
ing and conscious choice. Thus the struggle for existence
that underlies natural selection is increasingly replaced
by a struggle between ideas and values in the shared
consciousness of social beings, resulting in what we may call
conscious 6r psychosocial selection.

Through these new agencies, the possible rate of evolu-
tion was again enormously speeded up. What is more, there

22

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

has so far been a steady acceleration of the new rate* Whereas
in the Lower Palaeolithic major cultural change required
something of the order 06 1 o 6 years, by the late Upper Palaeo-
lithic the period was nearer io 4 years, and in historic times
came down to the century or io 2 yeats. Ancl during the last
hunched years each decade has seen at least one major
Change: if we are to choose ten such, let us select photo-
graphy, the .theory of evolution, the electro-m&gnetic theory
with its applications in the shape of f lectric light and power,
the germ theory of disease, the cinema, radio-activity and
the new theories of matter and energy, wireless and tele-
vision, the internal-combustion engirfe, chemical synthetics,
and atomic fission. To-day, indeed, even the most moment-
ous .changes, such as the discovery and first practical
application of atomic fission, may take only half a decade,
and there is as yet no sign of the rate of acceleration slowing
down.

Evolution in the human sector consists mainly of changes
in the form of society, in tools and machines, in ideas, in new
ways of utilizing the old innate potentialities, instead of in
the nature of those potentialities, as in the biological sector.
Man's inherited mental powers cannot have changed ap-
preciably since the time of the 'Aurignacian cave-dwellers ;
what have changed are the ways in which those powers are
used, and the socia] and ideological frameworks which condi-
tion their use. This is not to say that what has happened to
man since the Aurignacian period or since the time of ancient
• Greece is not evolution ; it is a very astonishing bjt of evolu-
tion. Nor does it mean that mah's innate mental powers
could not be improved: they certainly were improved (pre-
sumably by natural selection) in the earliest stages of his
career, from Pekin man through the Neanderthalers to our
own species, and they certainly could be improved further
by deliberate eugenic measures. Meanwhile, however, it is
in social organization, in machines, and in ideas that human
evolution is mostly made manifest.

These three sectors have succeeded each othfer in time.
Perhaps the next fact that strikes one concerning the process
as a whole is that the physical basis and the organization of
what ev&lves becomes more complex with time, not only in

23

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

the passage from one sector to the next, but also within each
secrtor. Most of the inorganic sector is composed of atoms or
of the still Ampler sub-atomic unitp, though here and there
it attains the next higher level, of molecules. Further, in a
few rare situations it must have reached the further stage of
organic macro-molecules, which can comprise a much larger
number and a much more complex arrangement of atoms/
It was from among such giant organic molecules that the living
or self-reproducing molecules of the biological sector were
later evolved. These are] more elaborate still, consisting of
many hundreds or perhaps thousands of atoms. In turn, their
vast but still sub-microscopic complexity provided the basis
for an even greater visible elaboration. The complexity of
the bodily organisation of a bird or a mammal is almost in-
conceivable to anyone who has not systematically studied it.
And this visible complexity has increased with time during
biological evolution. A bird or a mammal is more complex
than a fish, a fish more complex than a worm, a worm than
a polyp, a polyp than an amoeba, an amoeba than a virus.
Finally, in the human sector, a new complexity is super-
imposed on the old, in the shape of man's tools and machines,
idea-systems, and social organizations. And this, too, in-
creases with time. The elaboration of a modern state, or of a
machine-tool factory in it, is almost infinitely greater than
that of a primitive tribe or the wooden and stone implements
available to its* inhabitants. 1
But it is not only complexity of organisation which
increases ^yith time. In the biological sector, evolution -has
led to greater control over the environment, to greater
independence of its changes and chances, and to a higher
degree of individuation. It has also led to an increase of
mental powers — greater capacities for acquiring and organ-
izing knowledge, for experiencing emotion, aiid for exerting
purpose. This trend towards fuller knowledge, richer emo-
tion, and more embracing purpose is continued in the human
sector, though by different methods and *t a much increased
rate. But tt> it is superadded another trend — an increase in
the capacity to appreciate values, to appreciate experiences
that are of value in their own right and for their own sake,
to build on knowledge, to work through purpose, and' to

24

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

inject ethical values into the process of social evolution itself.
The ethical values may be limited and primitive, such as
unquestioning loyalty te a tribe, or high and universal, like
those which Jesus introduced into the affairs of the world;
the point is that only in the human sector do they become a
part of the mechanism of change and evolution.

These broad trends are not universal. In the biological
sector, stability frequently replaces directional change. Even
when broad trends exist, they needfiot be desirable from the
long-term point of view. Thus most evolutionary trends, like
those seen in the horse or elephant stock, are only specialisa-
tions. After tens of millions of years of one-sided improve-
ment for a particular way of life, they lead inevitably to an
evolutionary dead end, after which no further major change
is possible. However, a few trends do occur which promote
an all-r<Jund improvement of organization, such as the evolu-
tion of early mammals from reptiles, or e^rly man from
mammals. These do not close the door on further major
change, as was demonstrated by the large-scale evolution of
mammals in the Tertiary, or of man's societies since the Ice
Age; they are thus the only changes which are, from the
longest-range point of view, desirable and progressive.

Thus, whatever may have been the origin of the universe
and whatever its final fate, it has in fact shown a certain
trend which may properly be called progress. This is discern-
1 ible within the few hundred million years of its history about
which we can draw reasonable conclusions, and can be extra-
pfilated with a high degree of probability into the few thou-
sand million years of the future* about which we can make
reasonable prophecies. This trend is measurable most clearly
by the upper level attained by certain attributes of the exist-
ing world-stuff, rather than by their average level. These
attributes vafy according to the sector of existence which is
being considered. In the inorganic sector the only criterion
is complexity of organization. In the organic ghase of evolu-
tion complexity Continues to increase, But other criteria
become more important — notably the capacity to control
other parts of the universe, and to become more independent
of changes in the environment, while in its later stages the
dominant criterion shifts to increased capacity for know-

*5

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

ledge, emotion and purpose, notably the capacity for profit-
ing* by experience. All these criteria are still involved in
progress within the psychosocial phase, but new criteria are
superadded — notgtbly increased understanding and attain-
ment of intrinsic values. As my grandfather said in the
Prologomena to his Romanes Lecture in 1893, * n human
life the struggle for existence has been in large measure
replaced by the struggle for enjoyment. To which we may
add that, if we take thft long view, from the palaeolithic
period to the neotechnic culture of to-day, there has been a
rite in the level or value of the enjoyments for which we
strive, as well as an increase in the variety and quality ol
enjoyments which are possible.

Although we have no right to regard this trend as embody-
ing a cosmic purpose or a Divine intention, we can properly
say that it constitutes a desirable direction of evolAtion, as
contrasted with those numerous other trends which are less
desirable or undesirable — trends leading to cultural de-
generation or extinction, to one-sided specialization or to
stagnation.

Some maintain that we should not even use the word
desirable — that it is mere guestion-begging or anthropo-
morphic self-satisfaction to say that • any existing trend is
better than any other. That I deny. We can judge by results.
Life itself is, in a self-evident way, somehow higher than any
inorganic system er structure. Goethe's Faust or the Fifth
Symphony of Beethoven assuredly have higher value than
any creative^ achievement of savage man, let alofte than afty
animal activity; and the knowledge and comprehension
arising from the mathematical, scientific and humanistic
discoveries of the last three centuries* are clearly of greater
value than those available to Aristotle, not to speak of those
possible to primitive man or the highest of apes. A world
with antelopes and song-birds and butterflies in it is in some
real sense better — more beautiful, more wonderful, more
interesting — than one with only worms* and polyps and
protozoa, afld that again is somehow better than a lifeless
world. The world after human civilizations had arisen in it
was higher, more significant, more worth-while, than when
only barbarous.

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

It is true that the range of undesirable possibilities in-
creases at the same time, that in the human sector # at leastany
rise implies the possibility of a deeper fall and greater good
involves the possibility of greater evil. Bjxt this in no way
impugns the positive trend I have* outlined. The level of
desifable qualities and attributes attained by the existing
world does rise; that does not cease to be a fact because of
the existence of any other facts, even of antagonistic ones.

I want now to deal with the question of the inevitability
of progress. In biological evolution progress is in one sense
inevitable, In another sense not. It is inevitable in the seftse
that, given the struggle for existence* and natural selection in
our world or any world similar to ours during the last thou-
sand million years, it is apparently unavoidable that true
progress should occur in some of the lines of life. But it is
not universally inevitable: the great majority of biological
stocks cither show no progress, the reverse of progress, or a
rogress which is only partial and limited. It is conditioned
y accidents; if the identical stock which showed progressive
evolution on a continent could have been transplanted to a
small oceanic island with different competitors, it would
assuredly not have progressed. If the world had not had
the accident of a great climatic catastrophe befall it at the
close of the Cretaceous, the ancestral mammals would not
have supplanted the reptiles so completely nor embarked
■ upon such rapid new advance. And it will always remain
subject to accidents. If some virus or bacterium were to arise
which exterminated the human species, that ^puld almost
certainly be the end of any hopes'of major progress on earth.
If the temperature of the earth were to fall sufficiently, pro-
gress would undoubtedly stop and would eventually be
totally reversed.

In the hufhan sector for some considerable evolutionary
future, progress is probably inevitable, in the sense that the
upper level of desirable qualities in point of fact is bound to
rise. But it is not inevitable in the sense* that it must be
steady; on the contrary, there may be seriou^ regressions
interrupting the general rise of level, as we know from his-
tory and from all-too-personal experience. Nor is it inevitable
ill the Sense that it must be universal. This or that culture,

27

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

this or that trend, may ignominiously peter out or may crash
in war or revolution . Nor would it be inevitable if dysgenic
reproduction reduced the average level of innate intellectual
and moral qualities beyond a certain point. But given the
present state of the human race, its thirst for knowledge and
betterment, and the extent of its accumulated traditicpi, I
regard it as certain that some degree of progress will for
some time inevitably continue to occur.

The objection is sometimes made that if progress is in-
evitable we need not worry or exert ourselves ; it will happen
air/how, without our painful efforts. Or are we tdld that any
theory of inevitable progress, however limited, is mere fatal-
ism, and as such incapable of providing either guidance or
comfort. These, however, are fictitious difficulties. They
arise out of a false separation between our material and
mental activities. If we take the monistic or unitary'natural-
istic view demanded by evolutionary logic, matter and mind
cease to appear as separate entities; they are seen as two
necessary attributes or aspects of the single universal world-
stuff. In the inorganic sector the mental aspect is wholly
latent, negligibly developed. But in the higher range of
the biological sector certain configurations of the world-stuff
have definite mental attributes. Regarded objectively, these
configurations are the special arrangements of nervous tissue
we call brains ; physiologically they are organs for co-ordin-
ating and directing action on the basis of sense-data and
memory; but subjectively, certain of their activities are appre-
hended as jnental or psychological — perception, thought,
emotion, and will.

Freedom, said Spinoza, is the knowledge of necessity.
However epigrammatic, this dictum does constitute a resolu-
tion, albeit in highly condensed form, of the problem of free
will. The biologist would state the position rathfer differently.
He would say that the human brain provides a mechanism,
wholly novel in evolution, whereby alternatives can be con-
fronted. The alternatives may be alternatives of truth, or of
action, or of*emotional satisfaction. That is unessential; what
is essential is that they are truly alternatives, and that the
fact of their confrontation makes it necessary to choose*
between them, to select one rather than another. Further,

28

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

they are present together within the unity of consciousness ;
it is this simultaneous presence in consciousness Vhich con-
stitutes their confrontation. The choice, too, is a fact; and
like the confrontation, has its special accompaniments* in
consciousness, its necessary subjective aspects. When two
opposing impulses are confronted, we have a sense of con-
flict and struggle; when the confrontation is between two
closely balanced alternatives, a sense of indecision. Similarly
the act of choice is accompanied bjj a sense of effort when a
strong impulse has to be suppressed; by a sense of release
when a loWer impulse is transcended and flooded out by a
higher; sometimes by a sense of rational decision ; by a sense
of powerful and deliberate will; or by will which is effortless
because accompanied by a sense of certitude and inevit-
ability.

Man is unique in being endowed with such a mechanism
for confronting, weighing, and choosing between alterna-
tives in the light of reason and past experience. To this
situation, logical arguments about free will versus determin-
ism are irrelevant. The fact is that we are able to select
between alternate cause of action, and that this selection
involves the activity known as will. Tt involves an act of will
at the moment, and also the results of past acts of will. If we
had set ourselves to amass a little more knowledge, if we had
disciplined our moral activities better, or if we had kept our
bodies healthier, the decision we have to take to-day might
be different. As Schopenhauer wrote, "A man can do what
he*will, but # not will as he will." However, he c#n train his
will, so that it becomes a more efficient agency of choice and
action.

Progress at the present juncture may be inevitable, in the
sense of being in the nature of things. But it is also in the
nature of thirf^s that progress will not come about without
human choice, human effort, and human purpose. With the
coming of man, evolution itself comes to have a subjective
as well as an objective component. Man bfecomes a micro-
cosm in which the objective trends of the macroflbsm can be
mirrored and from whose subjective depths purpose can
flow out to influence the trends of the macrocosm and,
within gradually expanding limits, subject them to its will.

29

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Before 'coming to the possibilities of progress to-day, I
muct deal 'with some of the generalities of progress in the
human sector, since this is the subject or numerous miscon-
ceptions. In the fijrst place, the method of human evolution in
general, including that' by which progress can be effected,
is different from that found in the biological sector. This I
have already mentioned, but it cannot be too strongly re-
iterated. Natural selection, as operative in biological evolu-
tion, depending on the r differential survival of types with
different genetical endowment, has ceased to be of major
importance. It still operates, but in a quite subsidiary way,
and it is no longer the* prime agency of change. The prime
method of change is now change in cultural tradition. Much
of the struggle and consequent selection is between tradi-
tions and ideas, or between nations, classes, or other groups
embodying those traditions and ideas. The inter-irtdividual
struggle tends to become more a struggle for the means of
enjoyment than for the means of survival or of reproduction.
And finally, much of the struggle can be displaced from the
objective to the subjective world, there to involve the success
or failure of ideas or desires, instead of the life or death of
organisms or gametes.

Man could avail himself of a method of genetic change, if
he were deliberately to practise eugenics. This would, how-
ever, no longer be a form of natural selection but of artificial
selection, such as he has already practised on domestic 1
animals and plants, involving a conscious aim and a deliber-
ate control p of the mechanisms of heredity. It cotild therefore
operate much more rapidly and much less wastefully than
natural selection.

As to the course pursued by evolution, the results of the
biologists' elaborate exploration of the biological sector do
throw some light on the problem in the humaA sector. In the
first place, changes in the environment are important con-
tributory causes of evolution. Without the desiccation of the
mid-tertiary ftiete would not have been the rise of the Grass
family to b6tanical dominance over large areas of the world's
surface, or the consequent rise of the grazing herbivores
such as horses and sheep, oxen and antelopes.

When we extend this idea of environment to cover the

30

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

biological as well as the inorganic environment^ environ-
mental change becomes still more important as a factor in
evolution. The most obvious example is the colonization of
the land by green plants. Since all higher animals are directly
or ultimately dependent on plants, tile establishment of this
greejj environment was an indispensable prerequisite to
•colonization of the land by animals. A still more basic fact
is the general raising of the level of efficiency^and competi-
tion in the entire biological environment and the filling of
more and more niches by new adaptations. This it is which
makes evohition both inevitable and unique. The no»-
biologist sometimes asks why, if ape? once gave rise to man,
existing apes do not again evolve into a human type. The
answer is simple. Even if they had remained just as they
were before the evolution of man (instead of, as is probable,
becoming more specialized for an arboreal life), they could
not evolve in face of the competition from the more advanced
form to which their ancestral relatives once gave rise. There
is no longer an empty niche waiting to be filled by the evolu-
tion of a human creature; any tentatives in this direction
would bring the potential new men not into a vacant
promised land but straight up against the ruthless competi-
tion of the actual men already iri existence.

We must next mention specialization and its conse-
quences. Specialization — in other words one-sided adapta-
tion to a particular mode of life — eventually leads to an
evolutionary dead end. After this point is reached no more
major changes are possible, for reasons concerned with
mutation and selection into which we need not # here enter.
The specialized line or group may then continue to flourish,
apparently indefinitely, but with its variation restricted
within comparatively narrow limits; as has nappened with
the birds, for instance, during the past twenty or more
million years, or with the snakes. Alternatively, it may go
under in competition with some new rival line or as a result
of some climatic ohange, and either be totallylextinguished,
as were the ichthyosaurs and the dinosaurs at* the end of
the Cretaceous, or the sabre-toothed cats and the giant
sloths during the Ice Age, or else reduced to insignificance,
*like the* lung-fish in competition with more modern fish on

3i

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

the one side and amphibians on the other, or (alas!) the
larger mammals of to-day as a result of the spread of
civilized mkn.

There is another type of bar to evolutionary advance,
resulting from the inexorable limitations of some form of
physiological mechanism. Thus the employment by Arthro-
pods of a hard dead external skeleton involves periodic
moulting, and this has the further result of setting an upper
limit to size. Even the largest arthropods, to be found among
the marine Crustacea, never weigh more than a few score of
pounds. Among insects, the adoption of the method of
breathing by air-tubej or tracheae has set a much lower
limit to their size — which in turn has limited the size of
their brains and the evolution of any degree of pjastic
intelligence. As a result of this limitation, even those highest
of all insects, the ants, have shown no progressive ohange for
nearly fifty million years, and the entire group of insects
would seem to be barred from further major progress.

It is natural to ask whether similar bars to progress, due
to the limitations of some important social mechanism, also
operate in the human sector of evolution. The answer would
appear to be yes, though not very frequently. It may prove
that the Chinese method of writing, by ideographic symbols,
is an example of this, and that for Chinese civilization to
enjoy its full potentialities of progress it will be necessary to
change to an alphabetic method. The non-metric systems oi
measurement to which the British Commonwealth and the
United States still cling, if not bars to progress, are at Uast
brakes updfri it.

In any event, since these limitations are not inherent in
the genetic constitution, but only iij some aspect of social
tradition, they can be removed without the extinction or
collapse of the entire cultural group. They can be removed ;
but in fairness let us add that the difficulties in the way of
their removal, difficulties which are by no means all the
result of selfish ^vested interest, may be very great, as with
the case ofewitching over advanced industrial nations from
a non-metric to a metric system.

The next question is whether the opposition, so crucial ia
the biological sector, between specialization and progress, .

3*

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

between advance which is one-sided and limited and*advance
which is all-round and unlimited, is of importapce also tn
human evolution. The afcswer is yes; but the opposition
presents itself in a very different w#y. The evolution of
Homo sapiens has so far been mainly an evolution of
cultures and traditions, and cultures can interpenetrate and
interact. In the past, when cultural isolation was much
greater, a tradition may perhaps have become so specialized
as to become incapable of vital interaction and fusion with
other traditions; and in modern times, with the increased
possibilities of state propaganda anc^ state control, ther£
have been examples, such as Nazism, of the building up of a
tradition incompatible with any other type. But in general
different cultures do interpenetrate and interact, and if there
is extinction or a fall from dominance, it, for the most part,
comes not as the result of force (here again Nazism is an
exception) but as the result of the gradual abandonment of
certain ideas in favour of others which are in the ascendant.

An obvious example of interpenetration is the influence
of ancient Greek on Arabic thought, followed by that of
Arabic thought on Western mathematics, medicine and
science; on a smaller scale we have phenomena like the
blending of Christian and West African (Yoruba) practices
in such places as Cuba. As examples of a fall from dominance
we may take the abandonment in civilized countries of the
belief in magic and witchcraft in favour of more scientific or
•more spiritual^ conceptions, or the replacement of creationist
by evolutionary ideas during the l^st hundred years.

What we really need to know, however, is whether
specialization or one-sidedness in cultural tradition is in the
long run as undesirable* or at any rate as preclusive of per-
manent progress, as it certainly is in biological evolution. It
is difficult to give a clear-cut answer, for a culture or a tradi-
tion is not a sharply defined entity like a genetic constitu-
tion, but fluid and plastic; and also, as we Jia^jp just seen,
capable of interacting and uniting with other cultures and
traditions in a way impossible to all biological entities save
those few plant types capable of large-scale hybridization.
Wh^t we.can say, however, is that exaggeratedly one-sided
emphasis in culture or tradition — in other words cultural

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

specialization — is inimical, either at the time or later, to the
fullest degree of progress. It needs to be corrected, and the
necessary correction must sometimes be violent. The re-
current over-preoccupation of the Christian tradition with
sin ; the over-emphasis of the Middle Ages on symbol and
analogy; the over-emphasis of Fascism on the importance of
the State; the Nazi transference of national pride, in any
event exaggerated, to the falsity of racialism; the over-
emphasis on rank, prestige or ritual that afflicts so many
barbaric cultures; over-emphasis on the differences in way
of life between classes, especially when crystallized within a
rigid caste system; over-emphasis on the authority of the
ruler, as embodied in such traditions as the Divine Right of
Kings — these are a few examples. *

Divine Right and similar over-emphases needed revolu-
tions for their destruction ; Fascism and Nazism demanded a
world war. Over-preoccupation with sin has led to violent
attacks on all forms of enjoyment, which in their turn have
provoked counter-reactions that swing too far in the opposite
direction; over-emphasis on theological authority has put
needless shackles on the advance of material knowledge.

During the past hundred years there has been in the
Western world an over-emphasis on the material side of
things — on quantity as against quality, on novelty for its
own sake, on control pver the forces of nature as against
control over our own nature, on variety and multiplicity as
against unity, on matter as against mind, on technology as*
against a-t (including the art of life), on means as against
ends. This trend is taking us off the main line of possible
progress, and must be corrected soon unless it is to bring
about a reaction of over-compensation, so violent as to
deviate man's advance towards the opposite side of its true
line.

It will perhaps be objected that it is only by a succession
of such actions and reactions that man advances, and that
human progress must therefore pursue a perpetual zigzag,
never on its true course (though generally in the same general
direction), and punctuated by wasteful explosions of con-
flict, during which there may actually be a drift jway from
progress. Or alternatively that, whenever the oppositions of

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

thesis and antithesis, which await reconciliation in a dial-
ectical synthesis, are really important, the "reconciliation"-^
unlikely to be accomplished without violence. In either
case, major advance would always require ^cute revolution,
instead of gradual and peaceful evolution.

H^re biology may shed a suggestive light. In biological
evolution both acute and gradual change occur, and both
may contribute to progress. The sudden extihction at the
close of the Secondary Era (sudden yi the geological sense)
of some three-quarters of the main lines of reptilian evolu-
tion, togethe'r with the relegation to unimportance of all the
remainder save the one branch of lizards and snakes — this,
with the almost explosive evolution of the mammals which
followed upon it, was an acute process, a revolutionary event.
But the slow transformation, during perhaps fifty million
years of the Secondary Era, of one small and insignificant
reptilian line into a primitive mammal, and thg subsequent
slow transformation during another fifty million of the
Tertiary of one mammalian line into ancestral man — those
were processes of extreme gradualism, to be followed by the
acute revolutionary processes of extinction or reduction
and explosive spread, and it may well be that this co-opera-
tion between the violent and the gradual is inevitable in the
biological sector.

If so, it is because biological lines or trends of evolution
fre discrete, incapable of interpretation and fusion. In the
, human sector, however, as we have seen, what evolve are not
•gerife-completes but cultural traditions, and car^ therefore
interpenetrate. On the other hand,' they do not always do so
completely, or at least sufficiently to form a single viable
tradition out of the fusion of two hostile or opposing ones.
When there is this failure of fusion, it seems that any conflict
can only be rdbolved acutely — by violence, war, or revolu-
tion. But when interpenetration is sufficient to allow fusion,
the peaceful processes of gradualism can operate to produce
progress.

Here is another advantage of the method of hufnan evolu-
tion. The reconciliation of opposites can take place within
the plastic unity of tradition, without the wastefulness of
acute violence and extinction. This is the counterpart of the

35

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

corresponding advantage in the sphere of selection — the
replacement of the wasteful methods of natural selection,
with its inevitable differential mortality, by a selection of
techniques and ideas. r

We can now consider our present situation. In evolution
as a whole, it is obvious that there are two major critical
points — the origin of self-reproducing matter or life, and the
origin of self-reproducing culture or man. But there are also
minor or secondary critical points, decisive not so much
because of their immediate effects as for the new possibilities
frhich they open up. The secondary critical point in inor-
ganic evolution was the formation of giant carbon-containing
molecules, rightly termed "organic" since without them
living organisms would have been impossible. The second-
ary critical point in biological evolution was the origin of
learning — the formation of mechanisms for profiting by
experience. This was of importance partly because without
it the evolution of man would have been impossible; but
partly also because it is at the base of all the most successful
and developed products of biological evolution, from bee
and ant to mammal and bird* The secondary critical point
in human evolution will be marked by the union of all
separate traditions in a single common pool, the orchestra-
tion of human diversity from competitive discord to har-
monious symphony. Of. what future possibilities this may be
the first foundation, who can say? At least it will for the fir&
time give full scope to man's distinctive method of evolution •
and open ^he door to many human potentialities that are as f
yet scarcely dreamt of. Meanwhile anything that can be done
to increase the interpretation of traditions and their fruitful
union in a common pool will help, und is itself assuredly a
prerequisite of full progress.

There remains an apparent antinomy which we must try
to resolve, the antinomy between the idea of progress and
that of individual perfection. That opposition has been
forcibly put by'Aldous Huxley, 1 who goes so far as to state
that "the € final end of man is the achievement of unitive
knowledge of the Divine Ground of all being"; and that "a
society is good to the extent that it renders contemplatidh

1 Op. cit.

36 ■

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

possible to its members* \ He further identifies .progress
merely with "progress in technology and organization", apd
therefore as involving th« view that "the end of*human life
is action".

The same opposition has been eithfer expressed or actual-
ized in a hundred different ways. "What shall it profit a man,
if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" said
Jesus. The .emphasis on individual salvation, as against
realizing the kingdom of God on earth, has been on the
whole dominant throughout Christian history, and has been
especially intransigent when the salvation is considered to b\p
solely by grace. Dr Joseph Needhafn has some pertinent
remarks on this subject in his book of essays, History is on
Our Side. He points out how, in early civilizations, the pre-
vailing relation with the environment has determined man's
attitude to this two-faced problem. When, as in tropical
India, the environment was too much for struggling human-
ity, the spiritual leaders of that humanity proclaimed the
pessimistic view that only through the renunciation of that
environment — the physical world — could the individual
attain full or lasting satisfaction. But when, as in ancient
China, the environment was amenable to human effort,
religious philosophy adopted a worldly attitude and pro-
claimed the intimate linkage of individual and society, of
man and nature, in place of their opposition.
• The same insistence on the paramountcy of individual
development as is stressed by Aldous Huxley is also seen in
th£ prevalent individualism of America, although the two
points of view are bitterly opposed in other ways, American
individualism stressing the need for self-development and
self-expression, Aldous Huxley that for self-effacement or
self-transcendence if the individual mind is to achieve the
goal of losing Itself in union with the non-individual "Divine
ground", eternal and universal. In certain conditions, on the
other hand, the emphasis has shifted away from the indi-
vidual and is placed upon society. This is dft&i so in tribal
life, where the individual can scarcely be conceived of except
as a fragment and instrument of tribal tradition; and in
historic times it has prevailed in societies which are deliber-
ately tightly knit and highly organized for war or peace —

37

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

such as «the pre-Colombian Inca empire, or, in our own
times, the^modern Japanese empire, Fascist Italy (though
here Italian individualism was in large measure too much for
Fascist theory), $.nd Nazi Germany, whence the believer in
individualism was eliminated by exile, by imprisonment or
by death. In Communist Russia, too, there is less emphasip
on the rights and potentialities of the individual as such;
partly because as a result of the transposition of some of
Hegel's views on the ?tate into Marxist Philosophy, partly
because of the conscious adoption of a theory of total, mass
cr classless society, and no doubt partly through the exigen-
cies of a revolutionary situation.

The antinomy also has its evolutionary aspect. Our
analysis shows that the mechanism of human evolution is
a social one. But it also shows that the developed human
individual is the highest known product of evolution, the
fullest embodiment of progress in the universe ; in any case
society is certainly lower than the individual in not possess-
ing a conscious mind, with all the flexibility and potentiality,
both of thought and action, which that connotes. Here is an
apparent dilemma, and one which, as we have just seen, has
often been solved by emphasizing one of the opposing
claims to the virtual exclusion of the other. At one extreme
the overriding duty of the individual is regarded as being to
himself and his own development, to salvation, to the full
pride of selfhood, or to glorious self-transcendence; and
society is merely the environment in which he must perforce
carry out Jthis duty. At the other extreme, the overriding
duty of the individual ip regarded as being to the com-
munity; and society is seen as the more important and valu-
able entity, of which the individual i9 merely an organ.

The opposition between the requirements and interests
of the individual and those of society is and always will be
profound. Indeed, all moral codes and systems of ethics are
attempts to reconcile these opposites. The evolutionist
intent on elaborating a workable theor^ of progress must
attempt a fimilar reconciliation. In this, he can achieve a
considerable degree of success, though assuredly not any
smooth and perfect solution. We must remember c that thfe
individual evolves as well as society — only we generally call

38

A RE-DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

his evolution development. The life of the individuaj human
being is a process, not a mere existence, and even # the mqpt
transcendent and apparently timeless experiences # are related
to a dynamic development, and do not just happen statically.
The most important of all the prerequisites for future

Srogrpss is the acceptance of the fact of progress, and the
nderstanding of its nature; for we cannot expect to achieve
what we do jiot believe in. We command nature by dis-
covering and obeying her laws. The fact of progress has now
been discovered; but it is not yet generally acknowledged,
still less its taws adequately understood.

Once we accept the fact of progress, no longer need our
beliefs be restricted to anything so partial or ephemeral as a
particular nation, a particular religion, a particular culture.
Nations or religions may be the necessary vehicles or the
instruments of progress, but in so far as they are worthy of
our devotion, they must be thought of as the embodiments
of continuing processes in time. These proc&ses in their
turn, in so far as in a desirable direction, must now be
thought of as merely parts of the overriding desirable trend
that we call progress. This is truly a continuing process. It
has lasted for thousands of millions of years, and shows no
sign of drawing to an end. It has already raised the upper
level achieved by the world-stuff from the aimless jazz of
electrons and atoms through a whole series of astonishing
Stages. The first origin of life, with its attainment of self-
perpetuating organization: the evolution of sense-organs,
•with the attainment of knowledge of the world around; the
miracles of beauty, efficiency, and* grace that are^he higher
birds and mammals : the evolution of brains which can store
and profit by experience : the present culmination of life in
the emergence of man — man the microcosm, the time-
binder, with brain and mind capable of annihilating the
sequence of events, and tying them together in the unity of
consciousness; capable of confronting alternatives and mak-
ing decisions ; capable of acquiring knowledge atid producing
beauty almost immeasurably beyond anything* previously
realized by any single evolutionary line; capable of appreci-
ating and creating values, and of utilizing them as standards
and goafs; capable of throwing his thought forward into the

39

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

future and of realizing that advances equally enormous (but
equally impossible to visualize beforehand) are possible in
tlic millennia to come. m

In a way most important of all, we have a universal scale
against which tb set the disasters and miseries of a nation,
or of an entire age like our own. Against its broad measure
these appear either as necessary destruction opening the wa'y
to new construction, or as temporary setbacks.of no greater
importance to the general trend of evolution than are the
wavelets raised by a Contrary breeze to the sweep of the
incoming tide. *

And as regards our own personal lives, although nothing
can make up for blind and cruel blows of fate, we can see
them in a truer perspective. Paradoxically enough, this
enables us at one and the same time to realize our pettiness
and insignificance, but also our unique value and importance.
For we are at one and the same time mere organs of the
evolutionary* process, operating through society; and also,
whether actually or only potentially, the transcendent out-
come of evolution, through whom alone the full flower and
fruit of progress can be actualized and embodied.

Through the doctrine of progress we can be both con-
soled and exhorted to effort; we can be guided and we can
be warned; we can be given an enduring foundation, and
also a goal. Our acceptance of the fact of progress and our
understanding of the 'doctrine of progress constitute the
major prerequisite of our further progress.

40

MAN'S PLACE AND ROLE IN
NATURE 1

Nature is not a mechanism, but a process. To define
man's place in nature, we must discover what situation
he occupies in the process ; to determine his role, we need to
discover something of the essential characters not only of
nature, but of man himself as a resultant within its process?
and this exploration will lead to new views on the unity of
knowledge. Our age is the first in which we can obtain a
picture of man's place and role in nature which is both
reasonably comprehensive and based on scientific knowledge.
We can bfe sure that the picture is still very imperfect, that
its comprehensiveness will be much enlarged,, and that its
scientific basis will be powerfully strengthened ; but the fact
remains that our century is the first in which any both
comprehensive and scientific picture has become possible.

In the world picture resulting from the Darwinian up-
heaval of thought, man was no longer seen as standing over
against nature. His place was in nature; he was as much a
product of evolution as the animals and the plants. But in
our grandfathers' time, even the biologists still took a re-
stricted view of the evolutionary process. For one thing,
they tended to look backwards, to think in terms of the
ori^ns of preSent structures rather than of continuing trends
and their possible future. It was not for nothing that Darwin
called his two greatest books The Origin of Species and The
Descent of Man : the ideas of original creation and original sin
and the fall were still in the background of Victorian think-
ing. For nineteenth-century biology, man's position was
determined by comparative anatomy. The place assigned
him was amongst the animals: Genus, Homo\ Family,
Hominidae\ Subordfer, Anthropoidea\ Order, * Primates \ Sub-
class, Placentalia; Class, Mammalia; Phylum, Vertebrata\

1 Paper presented at Conference Five of the Bicentennial Celebration of
Columbia University, 1954, and later published in The Unity of Knowledge,
ed. Lewis Leary,.Doubleday, New York, 1955.

B 41

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Kingdom, Animalia. True, he was rather peculiar in various
ways; biit H that was not allowed to interfere with the prin-
ciples of sound zool6gical|classification.

However, hvman peculiarities persisted in manifesting
themselves in man's daily life. Men continued writing
poetry, going to war, making scientific discoveries, building

1>alaces, worshipping gods, founding colleges, training
awyer9, and many other activities undertaken by no other
organism. Though biological science was content to classify
him as just another animal, in his own eyes he was still the
•Lord of Creation, apart from the rest of nature, and in some
unspecified sense above nature. Furthermore, in spite of
pessimists and disheartened idealists, the unconscious as-
sumption widely prevailed that, however disreputably
animal man's origin might have been, the process or evolu-
tion had now culminated in nineteenth-century civilization,
with its scientific discoveries and its technical achievements.
All that was now needed to put humanity on the very
pinnacle of progress was a little more science, a little more
rational enlightenment, and a little more universal education.

We all know the disillusionment that has set in within the
brief space of half a hundred years. How the orderly mech-
anisms of nineteenth-century physics gave way to strange
and sometimes non-rational concepts that no one but mathe-
maticians could grasp; how the idea of relativity, and its
somewhat illegitimate extension to human affairs, destroyed
faith in the absolute, whether absolute truth or absolute
morality qt absolute beauty; how our belief in the essential
rationality and goodness of man was undermined by psy-
chology and sent crashing in ruins by the organized cruelty
of Belsen and the mass folly of two world wars ; and how our
idealistic notions of progress as the inevitable result of
science and education were shattered by events. In brief,
man's first evolutionary picture of nature and his own place
in it proved false in its design and had to be scrapped.

Meanwhile/ however, knowledge Has marched on in
many fielcfe : even disillusionment has brought a better under-
standing of our limitations, and the new knowledge is making
possible the redesigning of our world picture. The twentieth
century, besides introducing us to the new world of atomic

42

man's place and role in nature

physics and quantum theory at one end of the scale and to
that of relativity theory and the expanding universe of spif al
nebulae at the other, ha« given us our knowledge of the
method and course of biological evolution > of the develop-
ment and working of the human conscious and subconscious
mind j and of its interactions with the body; of the variety of
human societies and cultures revealed by social anthropology
and ethnology; and of the course of human history and
pre-history — in other words cultural evolution — from the
Upper Paleolithic to the present day.

As a resuft, our picture of man's place and role in nature
has once more changed. Though obviously this picture too
will change in the future, we may expect the change to be
one of natural growth and development, not the substitution
of a wholly new design; for the present pattern is, as I
emphasized earlier, the first to enjoy a reasonably compre-
hensive basis of scientific knowledge. .

What, then, is the picture that emerges? First, we dis-
cover that all nature is a single process. We may properly
call it evolution, if we define evolution as a self-operating,
self-transforming process which in its course generates both
greater variety and higher levels of organization. Though
single and continuous, it is divisible into three distinct sub-
processes or phases, each with its own distinctive methods
and results. They are the inorganic or cosmological, the
Srganic or biological, and the human or psycho-social. The
second is less extensive both in space and time than the first,
out # of which "it arises, the third less than the second.

The cosmological phase covers all but a tiny fraction of
the universe. It operates by methods of simple physical and
chemical interaction and its tempo of change is exceedingly
slow; its products show very limited variety and attain only
a low level of*organization. Nowhere in it can we discern
any mental activity.

The biological phase we know of only on out own planet,
thought it is presufned to exist also on a small minority of
other planetary specks. It operates by the self-reproduction
and self-variation of organic matter, which give rise to the
Aethod of self-transformation we call natural selection — the
differential reproduction of variants. With the aid of this

43

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

method fts tempo of change is faster, the variety of its results
much greafer, and the level of organization which some of
them attain very mucn higher. Its r operations affect not only
organic beings but that portion of the inorganic sector which
is their home. In its later stages, mental activities are obvious
and important. ■ h

Finally, the psychosocial phase we again know of only on
this planet, though it may possibly have arisen also in a small
fraction of other abodes of life. It operates by the self-
reproduction and self-variation of mind and its products,
Vhich give rise to the method of cultural evolution based on
cumulative experience. As a result, the tempo of its change,
the variety of its products, and the height of organization
reached are again enormously increased, as are its effects
upon the portions of the other two phases of the process
within the range of its influence. In the psycho-social phase,
mental activities are more important than material.

Man's place in this process needs to be determined both
in space and in time. Spatially, astronomy has now defined
his place with some accuracy. It is an extremely small place.
He inhabits one planet of one among hundreds of millions
of stars in one among hundreds of millions of spiral nebulae
or galaxies dispersed in an ocean of space to be measured in
hundreds of millions of light-years. Temporally, the deter-
mination is less precise, partly because our knowledge of the
past length of the process is less accurate, partly because itt
future can only be estimated. We can, however, affirm that
man has .come into existence somewhere in the micldle
reaches of the process, neither close to its beginning nor to
its end. If, as some prefer to believe, human civilization
represents the climax of evolution, it'is only a climax to date,
and has unimagined possibilities of further change still
before it.

The minimum age of our galaxy is estimated at four or
five thousand million years, and the age of our planet at three
to four thousand million. On that plahet, matter became
self-reproducing — in common parlance, life originated —
somewhere over two thousand million years ago, man less
than one million and civilization a bare five thousand yeafe
back. Since astronomers and theoretical physjcist§ give life

44

man's place and role in nature

on this earth a future at least as long as its past, if is fair to
say that man's temporal place in jiature is «omewh£re
roughly midway in the pfocess.

So-called modern man and his civilizations are thus in no
sense a final product of evolution, but only a temporary phase
in the process. Furthermore, realization of our transitional
and midway position demands that we cease thinking only
of past origifts and pay attention also to future possibilities.

A consideration of man's role in nature strengthens these
conclusions jdrawn from a better definition of his place in
it. In the last fifty years, thanks chiefjy to the discoveries oT
the paleontologists, we have for the first time gained a
reasonably accurate picture of the way in which biological
evolution pursues its course in time. There has been, we
find, a succession of organizational types, the later-appearing
ones possessing a higher level of organization than the
earlier. Structural organization rises from the pre-cellular to
the cellular and the multi-cellular level; there follows the
multi-tissued type, like the sea-anemone, and then the
multi-organed type like the worm or the mollusc or the early
arthropod. The multi-organed animal attains new mech-
anical and physiological levels, as in Crustacea and fish, new
and superior modes of organization of reproduction, as in
insects and reptiles, and new levels of behaviour appear, as in
birds and mammals and social insects. New methods of
Integration and homeostatic adjustment arise, such as the
endocrine system and the temperature-regulating mechan-
ism of higher vertebrates.

Each major improvement in organization brings into
existence a new and higher type, which then proceeds to
demonstrate its improved nature by its biological success, as
evidenced by its rapid multiplication and extension. The
single original type radiates out into a number of separate
lines or sub-types, each exploiting, in some special habitat
or way of life, the advantages of the general qj-ganizational
improvement possessed by the type.

General evolutionary advance is marked by a succession
of successful dominant types, each undergoing expansion
anfl specialized radiation, and each in turn supplanted in its
position of dominance by a later type which has evolved

45

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

some new major improvement. The classical example, and
thfe one most relevant to my present purpose, is that of land
vertebrates. During the past three hundred million years,
the amphibians* were, replaced as dominant type by the
reptiles, the reptiles by the birds and the mammals, the birds
and the mammals by man. The successful expansion ancj
diversification of each new type was correlated with the
reduction of the previous radiation, as dramatically illus-
trated by the extinction of many orders of reptiles towards
the end of the Mesozoic.

* Another important general characteristic of biological
evolution is that the great majority of evolutionary trends are
intrinsically limited : after a longer or shorter time they come
to a dead end. In the most general and non-committal terms,
directional change is normally succeeded by stabilization.

This obviously holds good for the relatively minor trends
we call specializations, like the specialization of whales for a
secondarily aquatic life or of horses for grazing and rapid
running. But, as my grandfather T. H. Huxley was one of
the first to point out, it holds good also for major organiza-
tional trends and improvements. The occupants of the bio-
logical scene are for the most part what he called "persistent
types", which have remained unchanged in their essential
characteristics from the moment when they have come up
against their invisible limitations. The most spectacular are
the so-called "living fossils" like the lungfishes, which have*
persisted as rare survivors of a once abundant group for over
threehund/red millions years; or the lampshell Lingula, which
is barely to be distinguished from its ancestors preserved in
the Ordovician rocks of four hundred million years ago.
But an entire successful group may persist. The Coelenter-
ates, such as jellyfish, polyps, and corals, certainly first
became abundant and successful well before the beginning
of the fossil record in the Cambrian, that is to say much more
than five hiyidred million years ago; and they are still
abundant and successful to-day. This (foes not mean that
there has Seen no evolutionary change within the group
during this portentous length of time. New specialized sub-
groups, for instance of cbrals, have arisen and old subgroups
have died out. But the coelenterate level of organization has

46

man's place and role in nature

never been transcended by such new sub-groups: the
coelenterate type of construction and working has persisted,
though variations have bpen played oh its essential theme.

The same holds true even tor the latest and most finished
products of evolution. The ants, in ftiany ways the highest
invertebrate type, have shown neither advance nor essential
thange since the time, some fifty million years ago, when
ancestral specimens were trapped in the resin that has
hardened into Baltic amber. The bird type has not changed
in its basic quality of warm-blooded flying machine for
perhaps twfenty-five million years, although much minor
specialization has taken place, adapting different avian
lines to different habitats, niches, and ways of life.

It.is not only levels of organization and plans of construc-
tion which became stabilized; improvements in functional
capacity find biological performance also reach a limit. The
limit has long been reached in respect of terrestrial size, of
elaboration of instinct, of speed in water, on land, or in the
air. It appears biologically impossible to develop greater
acuity of vision than that of hawks, and biologically un-
profitable to increase the delicacy and accuracy of tempera-
ture-regulation beyond that achieved tens of millions of
years ago both by birds and mammals. Digestion, nervous
conduction, mechanical support, muscular contraction,
chemical co-ordination — all have long since reached the
highest level of efficiency possible to animal life.

To be brief, it appears that some time in the Pliocene,
befween five and ten million years ago, the possibilities of
major improvement in the material and physiological pro-
perties of self-reproducing matter had been exhausted. The
purely biological phage of evolution on this planet had
reached its upper limit, and natural selection was no longer
capable of producing any further large advance.

This does not mean that all biological evolution has come
to an end, as is often mistakenly alleged. New species are
constantly being evolved, and we can be suretHtit new trends
will continue to bring new types into being. But these trends
will all operate on existing levels of organization, and no
advance to a new and higher level will, it seems, be possible,
nor an)T major improvement in biological efficiency.

47

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

You will observe that my statement contained two caveats.
Ope was that the method of natural selection alone was in-
capable of f>roducing\£urther larg$ advance; the other, that
in Pliocene times the possibilities of material and physio-
logical improvement had reached a limit. The two hang
together. The possibilities of improvement in the mental or
psychological capacities of life had not been exhausted: and
when their improvement reached a critical value, a new
method of evolutionary transformation became available.

The one line in which mental improvement reached this
critical value was that of our hominid ancestors ; # and the new
evolutionary method which became available to it was the
method of the transmission and transformation of tradition.
This method of communication by concept and symbol pro-
vided an additional mechanism of inheritance involving the
cumulative transmission of acquired experience, • and per-
mitted a much speedier and in many ways more effective
type of evolutionary transformation, which we may call cul-
tural evolution. With the passing of this critical point,
hominids became men, man became the new dominant type,
and the human or psycho-social phase of evolution was
initiated on our earth.

Biological evolution depends on natural selection, which
was made possible when matter became capable of self-
reproduction and self-variation. Psycho-social or cultural
evolution depends on cumulative tradition, which was made
possible when mind and its products became capable of self-
reproduction and self-variation. • •

The emergence of ma,n'as latest dominant type imposed a
further restriction on the evolutionary possibilities of the
rest of life. Even should the conclusion prove unjustified
that purely biological evolution has reached its limit and
become stabilized, and some new animal typfe should arise
which threatened man's dominant position, man would
assuredly be able to discern and counter the threat in its
early stages. Man is thus to-day the only organism capable
of further major transformation or evolutionary advance.

Our knowledge thus now enables us to define man's role
as well as his place in nature. His role is to be the instrument
of the evolutionary process on this planet, the sofe agent

48

man's place and role in nature

capable of effecting major advances and of realizing new
possibilities for evolving life. This, however, is gnly a brflad
and general statement. To define his role more accurately we
need to study in more detail the peculiarities of man as a
unique psycho-social organism, and the trends and mechan-
ismstof his new form of evolution.

Man's decisive uniqueness is his possession of a self-
reproducing tradition. His many other biologically unique
characteristics are either prerequisites for or secondary con-
sequences of this, and need not be discussed in the present
context. It was the primary uniqueness of self-reproducirfjjj
tradition which enabled him to become the new dominant
type in evolution. This property of man depends on his
capacity for true speech, which in turn is correlated with his
capacity for conceptual thinking. True speech involves the
use of tfords as symbols to denote objects and ideas, as
against all forms of animal language and communication,
which merely utilize auditory or visual signs to express
feelings or attitudes.

Thinkers discussing the distinctive characters of man
have usually laid their main or sole emphasis on intellectual
or rational thought, and on language as its vehicle. This is
precisely because they were thinkers, not artists, or practical
men, or religious mystics, and therefore tended to over-value
their own methods of coping with reality and ordering ex-
perience. In addition, the verbal formulation of intellectual
propositions promises greater exactitude and facilitates the
accurate and* large-scale transmission of experierce.

But this intellectual and linguistic over-emphasis is
dangerous. It readily degenerates into logic-chopping or
mere verbalism. What is more serious, it takes no account of
man's emotional and aesthetic capacities, exalts reason and
logical analysis at the expense of intuition and imagination,
and neglects the important role of arts and skills, rituals and
religious experiences in social life and cultu^l evolution.
The evolutionary philosopher (and also the true humanist,
whether he be anthropologist, historian, psychologist, or
social scientist) must take all the facts into account: he must
attempt a comprehensive view of man's special character-
istics, and of their effects on his evolution.

49

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The distinctive feature of man is that he is a cultural
animal. In the psychosocial phase, it is cultures that evolve.
I am of course using cultures in the anthropologist's sense, of
patterns of language and law, ritual and belief, art and skill,
ideas and technology, which all have to be learned and all
depend on symbols and their communication, instead of
being innate and depending on sign-stimuli and their inter-
action with releasing mechanisms as in animals. In animal
evolution there is a sbarp distinction between soma and
germ-plasm, between the organization for living and the
organization for reproduction and transmission. 1 In psycho-
social evolution this " distinction breaks down: cultural
patterns are, in Washburn's words, both "shared and trans-
mitted", so that culture is simultaneously both the soma and
germ-plasm of the social organism.

All the components of culture are in the lasf analysis
symbolic; they exist only in virtue of man's powers of mental
conception, his faculties of abstraction and generalization, of
creative imagination and systematization — in a word, of
constructing organized patterns of conscious experience,
thought and purpose. Cultures are based on pre-existing
material conditions and issue in new material effects; but
they are predominantly the creation of mental activity in the
widest sense.

However, we need a term to denote mind in this broad
sense, as including all kinds of conscious experience and
activity, rational intellect and imagination, emotionally
motivated, beliefs and attitudes, mystical experiences ind
aesthetic expressions, deliberate technical skills and symbolic
ritual actions. I shall use the term noetic for this purpose.
Although it has been sometimes restricted to intellectual
activity, it is derived from the Greek word for mind, and has
been applied in this general sense by two pioneers, both
having begun significantly as biologists. St John Mivart
used noesis tp denote "the sum total of the mental action
of a rational animal"; and P&re TeilhardMu Chardin, in his
remarkable book Le Phenomhe Humain (Paris, 1955),
speaks of man and his activities as constituting the noo sphere,
as against the biosphere which denotes the total of the organic
inhabitants of the earth.

50

man's place and role in nature

I would accordingly suggest the term noetic system or
noosystem to denote the complex of the shareable and trans-
missible activities and products of human mind, the pattern
thought and science, law and morality, art and ritual, which
forms the basis of human society. These noetic patterns will
^differ from culture to culture, and often within a single
culture. The study of how they are transmitted and how they
change and evolve in time should be the central quest of the
sciences of man : we might call it noogenetics.

I introduce these terms merely to save time in later dis-
cussion. WW is important is the functions which tlfe
systems carry out. Man's place in 'nature, we have seen,
is at the present summit of the evolutionary process on this
planet; and his role is to conduct that process to still further
heights. The mechanisms by which he can perform that role
are his noetic systems — self-reproducing cultural agencies,
superorganic products of conscious human organisms. He is
now the agent of evolution, whether he knows it or not; but
he will perform his role better if he is a conscious agent.

His evolution is now almost wholly a cultural evolution,
operated by the transformation of shared and transmissible
noetic systems — in other words, symbol-based systems — and
their communication, both in space and in directional time.
Throughout its history, the human species has operated by
means of a number of distinct and often hostile or even irre-
concilable noosystems; and none of them so far have fully
or accurately represented the realities of nature. Both these
facts have impaired their functional value in psycho-social
evolution, and have prevented man from adequately per-
forming his evolutionary role.

Man differs from aft other dominant types — indeed from
all biological types whatsoever — in that he has not split up
into separate sub-groups, has not radiated out into a number
of biologically discrete lines of specialization and adaptation,
but has remained biologically a single interbreeding group
or species. Culturally, however, he has split up — into a
number of social or cultural lines or "interthinkifig groups",
each with its own noosystem as basis for its existence and its
SvQlution.

It would glearly make desirable psycho-social evolution

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

easier to undertake and to operate effectively if the entire
spfecies shared one noosystem, one single body of knowledge,
ideas, and attitudes. Fk>m this angk, the unity of knowledge
is part of the noetic uqity which we must strive to attain if

the intellectual and practical fruits of science and learnihg — :
"the sciences" in their broad European connotation, both
natural and human, both pure and applied, and not only
academic knowledge but also "know-how".

The possible creation of a unity of knowledge by extend-
ing a common system of facts and ideas to the whole human
species had a number of implications. Since the only potenti-
ally universal type of knowledge is scientific, in the broad
sense of resting on verifiable observation or experiment, it
follows that this unity of knowledge will only be attained
by the abandonment of non-scientific methods of system-
atizing experience, such as mythology and supersitition,
magico-religious and purely intuitional formulations. Here
is an enormous and vitally important task for intellectuals
of the world — to foster the growth and spread of a
scientifically based noosystem.

This will also help to remove the second major defect of
all existing and past noosystems — their lack of correspond-
ence with the facts of nature. The facts of nature of course
embrace not only cosmic, physical, and biological nature but
also the facts of human or psycho-social nature, including
social organization and cultural evolution; what is more,
they embrace not only the facts of static organization tut
also the dynamics of nature as a process.

In so far as we succeed in constructing a system which
represents the facts of nature, we shall have created not
merely another noosystem, but a noocosm — a % noetic micro-
cosm which both illuminates and in a certain sense embodies
the macrocosmic process. Such a system would be a new
organ of evoking life, an organ both of comprehension and
of control, through which we could no\ only reach some
comprehension of the cosmic process — nature in the fullest
sense — but also implement its further progress.

I am not so naive as tb believe that only one noetif system*
can exist in any community. Actually, "one. society, one

we are to fulfil our destiny. Knowledj

this sense includes

5 2

t

man's place and role in nature

noosystem" is the exception : in advanced societies, a number
of distinct noetic systems normally coexist. To fliscuss this
phenomenon in detail is beyond the Scope of this essay. It
must suffice to point out the following faats. First, the co-
existing systems may be complementary, as in a stable
^ociety organized on a class basis. I may instance the atti-
tudes and ideas of the peasants, the clergy, and the feudal
lords in the Middle Ages, or those of the "labouring classes"
and the Whig aristocracy in the eighteenth century. Though
there may be some friction between such separate systems,
they function essentially as parts of a larger though looser
unity. Secondly, as a corollary of this,* there are usually some
key concepts and attitudes common to all classes or groups
of a •complex society; it is these which provide the total
system with what unity it has. Thirdly, one of the partial
systems fs usually dominant, in the sense that it has more
operative effect on the development of the society as an
organized community. This is so, for instance, wherever
power is concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy, whether
the great Whig landowners of Britain in the eighteenth
century or the Central Committee of the Communist party
in the U.S.S.R. to-day.

Finally, there may be a struggle for dominance between
partial systems, which then naturally appear in opposition,
and may come into active conflict. In such cases we are wit-
nessing an important feature of psycho-social evolution, a
noogenetic phenomenon analogous to the rise of an im-
proved type'in biological evolution. Analogous, 0 but by no
means identical. In biological evolution the types are con-
demned to remain distinct, and the struggle must result
either in their permanent competitive co-existence, or in the
expansion and rise to dominance of one, accompanied by the
decline and reduction or extinction of the other. Though the
same sort of results may occur in psycho-social evolution, as
witnessed by the continued co-existence of thg theistic and
the scientific systftm in Western Europe "during the last
three centuries, or by the rise of the Marxist system to
dominance in post-revolutionary Russia, there are also addi-
tional possibilities. Elements of a less successful system may
be'incorporated in one which is newly dominant, as with the

53

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

absorption by Christianity (and indeed by all higher religious
systems in t;heir early ftages) of elements of magic and ani-
mism from more pririiitive systems; or, still more interest-
ing, conflict may be transcended in a new unification, and
opposing system may be more or less completely reconciled
in a higher synthesis, as happened when the new central idea
of religious toleration brought religious persecution and the
wars of religion to an end in Christian Europe, and as is
beginning to happen ijj the world community to-day with
the first transcendence of conflicting nationalisms by a supra-
nationalist system of ideas and practice.

This brings me to another aspect of noetic unity. Man's
systems of shared experience and attitude acquire increased
unity not only externally by extension through greater areas
and greater numbers of people, but also internally by greater
integration. This is accomplished by what may De called
noetic integrators — symbolic or conceptual constructions
which serve to interpret large fields of reality, to transform
experience into attitude and unify factual knowledge in
belief. The general role of noetic integrators has never, so
far as I am aware, been adequately explored, though atten-
tion has been paid to integrating concepts in the intellectual
fields of science and philosophy, and to the integrative role of
symbols in ritual and art.

In science, an integrating concept is one which orders a
mass of fects and ideas into an organized pattern : it may be*
styled an intellectual organizer, roughly analogous to the
biological prganizer discovered by Spemann which imposes
a pattern of organization on the early embryo of vertebrates.
Thus the pattern of scientific thought and knowledge
imposed by the concept of the conservation of matter and
energy is quite different from that determined by the medi-
eval ideas of force and the four elements, besides unifying
a much larger quantity of facts.

Even in the purely intellectual and scientific spheres,
many organizing concepts are successful because they
integrate apparent disparates or even reconcile apparent
opposites. Thus the concept of temperature reconciles the
originally opposed concepts of hotness and coldness. On a(
vaster scale, modern physical theory not only integrates all

54 '

man's place and role in nature

the multifarious forms of physical existence in the single
concept of matter and the diverse tjpes of physical action
in the single concept of energy, but reconciles the inertness of
matter and the activity of energy in a still more embracing
synthesis. Similarly modern evolutionary genetic theory not
only, demonstrates the unity of life — green plants, animals,
bacteria, and the rest — all based on the common mechanism
of the chromosomal gene-complex, but also feconciles con-
stancy with change. ,

When we come to the fields of belief and morality, atti-
tude and expression, in which values and emotions are
involved as well as knowledge, this capacity of noetic
integrators for combining or reconciling opposites becomes
even more important. Many such integrators are symbolic
constructs, and it is in the very nature of a successful symbol
to be a tomplex unity, capable of bringing together many
disjoined or even disparate elements in a single effective
pattern.

I am using symbol in the broadest possible sense, to denote
the whole range of noetic constructions to which man has
assigned significance, from national flags to gods, from
slogans to celebrations, from rituals to works of art.

Many early rituals, like ritual cannibalism or the rites of
Adonis, combine the opposites of death and life, of sacrifice
and fulfilment; and this persists in sublimated form in rites
Mike that of the Mass, For Christians, the cross is charged
with a multiplicity of emotional, ethical and religious values
wRich it unites in its single symbol. In human personality,
many separate faculties are united, many conflicting im-
pulses at least partially reconciled: thus a personal god is a
more effective integrator than an impersonal one. However,
since a monotheistic god must logically come to include
more aspects "of reality than can be credibly or intelligibly
symbolized as a single personality, trinitarianism is a more
effective theological concept than unitarianism ; it provides
the godhead with f three Persons symbolizifig* three aspects
of the realities of human destiny, aspects so different that
they could scarcely be found within the confines of a single
personality, while yet insisting on the oneness of the trinity
as symbol of the over-riding unity of the universe.

55

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

One final general point before I get down to my particular
task: all noetic integrators have an intellectual core of some
sort and degree; or, nx>m another<>angle, all effective sym-
bolic constructs bave a knowledge aspect, all contain an idea
or system of ideas, wKether explicit and conscious, or un-
conscious and implicit. This applies to expressive constructs,
such as works of art and rituals as well as to scientific or
ethical or theological integrators. This is another way of
saying that, since all symbolic constructs arid all noetic
integrators have as their essential function the significant
interpretation of reality as presented in available' experience,
they will perform that' function better in so far as they em-
brace a larger field of experience and correspond more
accurately with reality.

This is of the greatest importance for man's evolution.
For on the one hand it stresses the desirability of cdntinuing
to extend our experience and enlarge our knowledge of
reality; and on the other hand it warns against noetic
fossilization, and emphasizes the danger of our symbolic
constructs and noetic integrators becoming rigid and not
keeping pace with the growth of our knowledge.

We are now in a position to consider the relation between
man's place and role in nature and the unity of knowledge,
or, as I would prefer to say, the unity of organized experi-
ence. If man's role is to be the instrument of further evolu-
tion of this planet, he needs the best possible noosystem to'
enable him to perform that role effectively. To start with, he
requires tq extend his knowledge of the unitaty process 1 of
reality that we call nature, including of course the part of
reality included in his own nature and his own psycho-social
evolution ; research must be vigorously prosecuted in every
field of science and learning. Secondly, he must attempt to
unify his knowledge by systematizing it and f>y discovering
the interrelations between different fields of experience. For
example, our a^e is the first in history in which we have
acquired a comprehensive knowledge of Historical fact, from
the present* back to the paleolithic, and therefore the first
age in which it is possible to attempt a unified history, such
as the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind sponsored
by Unesco. If this attempt is successful, it will mark an im-

man's place and role in nature

{>ortant advance in the unified articulation of factual know-
edge. It has now become possible to produce similar unified
articulations of factual kry)wledge in other major fields, such
as physical geography, material resources, or biological
evolution.

Such extensive systems or articulations of knowledge are
valuable and necessary bases for noetic unification ; but they
need to be supplemented by the intensive fhechanism of
noetic integrators if we are to aclyeve integration in the
domain of beliefs and attitudes, and therefore the overall
unification £ dynamic noosystem.

How does all this apply to our immediate task? Let me
recapitulate the essentials of the problem. Psycho-social
evolution is cultural : it operates via the culture-complex, and
is realized through the evolutionary transformation of cul-
tures. Ndosystems play a necessary and important part in
cultural evolution ; and noetic integrators provide a necessary
and important part of the driving force and interpretative
efficiency of noosystems. Our problem thus is to develop
noetic integrators suitable for our present phase of cultural
evolution. They must be consonant with the structure and
the trends of man's present system of knowledge: they must
also help to secure a pattern and direction of cultural evolu-
tion which will most effectively enable man to perform his
evolutionary role in nature.

The most important facts and ideas which our new
integrators must symbolize, focus, and order seem to me to
be fhese. First, the fact of the unity of nature, of /he entire
reality of the cosmos — unitary monism as against any form of
dualism, whether the dualism of natural and supernatural,
of body and spirit, of actual and ideal, or of matter and mind. 1
Secondly, the fact that nature is a process, all reality a
pattern of processes — evolution as against static mechanism,
change as against fixity. Thirdly, the fact that evolution is
directional, that it generates greater variety, higher organ-
ization, increase of Oriental activity, more definite and more
conscious values — the idea of possible progress afid advance

1 Like so many philosophical terms, monism has been employed in a
cflnfu9ing number of way9. I use it simply to denote a unitary and compre-
hensive as against a dualist, pluralist, or restrictive approach.

57

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

as against stability or retrogression or mere alteration, of
significant as against pon-significant change or no change at
all. We can reformulate this last# point in terms of possi-
bilities. Evolutionary advance consists in the realization of
new possibilities by nature: thus we explore the areas and
limits of possibilities, as against merely studying or accept-
ing actualities. Finally, we have the fact that man's role is
to be the instrument of further evolution on this planet — an
evolutionary view of human destiny as against a theological
or a magical, a fatalistic or a hedonistic one.
c The precise form which the new integrators' should take
as effective noetic organs is not for any individual to pre-
scribe : it can only emerge as the result of much co-operative
discussion. Certain conclusions, however, seem inevitable.
It is clear, I think, that the dualistic ordering of experience
round the two incompatible integrators of natural 2nd super-
natural must go, and must be replaced by the idea of universal
unity. Similarly the duality of material and spiritual elements
in civilization must somehow be resolved in the unity of
psycho-social culture, and that of mind and body in the
concept of psychosomatic integration. Again the apparent
opposites of individual and society became complementary
within the concept of cultural evolution ; and the conflicting
desires for success in, and escape from, the limited present
can be reconciled in. the idea of progressive realization of
possibilities.

Gods have been extremely potent noetic integrators in the
last millennia of human history: but it is becoming clear that
God, like all other concepts involving the animistic projec-
tion of man's mental and spiritual attributes into non-human
nature, is ceasing to have interpretative value and needs
replacing by some non-animistic construction, such as the
concept of self-transforming and self-transcending reality.
The ideas of comprehensible activity and orderly process
will perhaps replace those of divine omniscience and omni-
potence, and the concepts of operative s&credness and effect-
ive ideals supplant that of God's sanctity and goodness.

Assuredly the concept of man as instrument and agent of
the evolutionary process will become the dominant integ-
rator of all ideas about human destiny, and will set the pattern

58

man's place and role in nature

of our general attitude to life. It will replace the idea of man
as the Lord of Creation, as the puppejt of blind fate, or as
the willing or unwilling subject of a Divine Master.

New integrators are also needed for more limited and
more immediate fields of experience and action. For instance,
the facts of national interdependence, the existence of grossly
under-developed areas, the incipient schemes for supra-
national action in the spheres of politics, economics and
so-called Technical Assistance, could all be integrated in the
dynamic idea of joint participation in a common enterprise
of world development.

The often rather futile discussions as to the status of the
artist and the significance of art can be resolved by taking a
functional view: the function of the artist is to bear witness
to the variety and richness of reality, and to express it
effectivel/ and significantly in terms related to the life and
aims of man.

Again, the role of writers, philosophers, columnists, and
journalists would gain both clarity and dignity by being
integrated under the head of interpretation : they are, or can
be, the interpreters of reality, and the profession of inter-
preter of reality could in part take the place of that of
prophet, which, in its original sense, has long fallen into
desuetude.

For petitionary prayer we must substitute what may be
dfescribed as dynamic meditation, a spiritual discipline which
gives a set to the whole psyche and attunes it to wider and
higher levels <5f reality. Our decendants will have t9 coin the
right phrase to denote the noetic integrator for this purpose.

The ideal of social or professional success, based on a one-
sided specialization of* some single faculty or skill and
evaluated in material or quantitative terms, needs to be
supplemented and in large measure replaced by the ideal of
wholeness. The integrator here is integration; the aim the
development of an integrated personality, an inngr harmony,
with peace as its product. The concept of the # Absolute
would seem destined to disappear in all fields, whether of
truth, beauty, goodness or any other value, to be replaced
by those of satisfying wholeness, of self-transcendence, and
of desirable direction.

59

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Finally, I would prophesy that the central overriding
integrator, round wl^ich man's entire noetic system is organ-
ized, will be that of fulfilment — satisfaction through fuller
realization of possibilities. In the light of this concept, the
sharp antinomies between individual and society, between
nation and mankind, disappear, for each has its claim to its
own fulfilment, and all are complementary within the total
process of the evolutionary fulfilment of life. Past, present,
and future are similarly united in its synthetic grasp, and the
sharp opposition between the ideal and the real, between
'the abstract and the actual, is reconcilable in the concept
of the increasing realization of possibilities.

This does of course not mean that conflicts will or should
vanish: but they will appear as inevitable and often necessary
steps in the reconciliatory dialectic process which can pro-
duce greater fulfilment. Nor does it mean that mafhkind will
be furnished with a set of rules applicable to particular
situations. It is of the essence of a good noetic integrator to
be general and elastic: its function is to determine approach
and determine attitude, not to provide detailed guidance.

Nor would general acceptance of fulfilment as central
noetic concept ensure that human beings would always rule
their actions and their lives in accordance with it. Men will
continue to steal and kill, to act stupidly and deceitfully, as
they have done in the past in spite of their general acceptance
of the integrating concepts of theistic religions. But man's
noetic systems do have an influence on his actions: they
determine and provide the general policy and the general
set of his cultural behaviour, through which he pursues his
destiny.

It is further obvious that noetic systems differ in their
efficiency and value, and I would maintain that in the world's
present age, one organized round the integrating concept
of fulfilment will achieve a greater degree of unity than any
other, and ^iH give man more help in the better accomplish-
ment of his role in nature.

60

evolution; cultural and
biological

When I was invited by the Wcnner-Gren Foundation to
prepare '"a guest editorial on a subject of my choice",
concerning my views on anthropology, I was naturally
flattered, but f also experienced considerable trepidation. Even
if an evolutionary biologist had any views on anthropology,"*
how could they be of any value to' professional anthro-
pologists? However, I reflected, an evolutionary biologist, if
he should not aspire to views on anthropology, might be
expected to have some views of anthropology in relation to
his own subject. This, then, is what I shall attempt — a view
of anthropology sub specie evolutionis, in the belief that the
general concepts and principles derived from biology will
prove to have illuminating applications or implications for the
more restricted and younger sister-science of anthropology.

Let me at the outset make a comprehensive disclaimer. I
do not believe that any purely biological concepts and
principles can be immediately applied or directly transferred
to anthropology. In fact I know they cannot; the various
past attempts at such direct transference and application
have always resulted in confusion rather than clarification.
The reason is simple : although the history of man is clearly
part of a more general evolutionary process, its basis and
mechanism is something sui generis. Man is a unique organ-
ism with unique properties, and there must be specifically
anthropological concepts and principles whose application
is restricted to jnan.

In the last few decades it has become clear that the whole
of phenomenal reality is a single process, which properly
may be called evolution. Though the process Revolution is
unitary, embracing* the entire universe both in^space and
time, it is divisible into three very distinct sectors or phases,
each with its own characteristic mechanism, tempo, and type
of product — the inorganic or cosmological; the later and
1 Gue9t editorial written for the Yearbook of Anthropology, 1955.

61

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

much restricted organic or biological sector arose as a later
phase from the inorganic; and the still later and still further
restricted human or psycho-social.

We have in the last half-century arrived at an adequate
general understanding of the biological sector. This has been
due to detailed study, first of what evolves — lineages qf
organisms of various types, including their structure, physi-
ology and ontogeny, and their ecological relations; secondly,
of the genetic basis of, evolution — the mechanism of repro-
duction, hereditary transmission and transformation, includ-
ing the gene-complex, variation, and natural selection ; thirdly,
of evolution as a process — the mechanisms and modes of its
self-transforming course, as revealed in phases of change
and stabilization, in radiation and extinction, in succession
of dominant types, in emergence of higher material and
mental organization ; and finally by a synthesis of the relevant
results in all three fields. Our knowledge of this interlocking
trinity of subject-matter — the mechanisms for maintaining
existence, the bases of reproduction and variation, and the
modes of evolutionary transformation — had first to be
gathered and then synthesized, to give us an understanding
of life's total process.

The same must assuredly hold for the human or psycho-
social phase. Anthropology is the science of the psycho-
social sector. It cannot expect to make full and compre-
hensive progress if it restricts its field. The study of sociAI
psychology and of the psychological mechanisms underlying
various culture traits is important; so is a study of social
structure and cultural Working; and that of personality; and
of social institutions and of systems and methods of educa-
tion; and of culture-contact; and of kinship systems, totemic
organizations, and religions; and of material artifacts; and
of linguistic, technological, aesthetic, scientific, and other
partial modes of evolution : but none is sufficient by itself.

As in the biological sector, so in the human: we need a
knowledge of the mechanisms that mslintain psycho-social
existence, 'of their reproduction and variation, of the mech-
anisms and modes of their transformations in time, to give
us a general understahding of the psycho-social process as a
whole — in other words, of man.

62

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

But anthropology was inevitably a late starter in the
scientific race, and it has to cope with % subject-matter both
more complex and more # confused than that of any other
science. No wonder that understanding of the psycho-social
sector of reality lags behind that of the biological and the
inorganic.

Long before biology was born as a science, it seemed
obvious that »the individual organism provided the mechan-
ism for maintaining existence in the # biological sector. But
though this holds for most higher animals, and though there
is a marked Irend toward sharper and fuller individuation iit
the course of biological evolution, lafer study showed that
this naive conclusion was not quite so obvious as it at first
sight Jiad appeared. In many forms it is difficult and in some
impossible to determine the limits or even the nature of the
individual organism. However, there does always exist some
organization of living matter whose function it is to main-
tain itself in direct interaction with its environment. In the
terminology of modern genetics, we may speak of this as
the phenotypic system. It may be composed of single indi-
vidual organisms, usually of two sexes, or of communities or
societies of such separate individuals (as in gregarious
mammals or social insects) or of colonies in which the
individuals are physically united and lose much of their
pristine individuality (as with the cells of a metazoan or the
•individuals" of a siphonophore or a bath-sponge). But it is
always a system for maintaining existence. The study of its
structure and form constitutes anatomy and mcyphology;
that of its methods of working constitutes physiology, be-
haviour, and psychology; that of its relations with the
environment, including-other organisms, constitutes ecology ;
and that of its development and growth constitutes embry-
ology and ontogeny.

The biological mechanisms of reproduction and variation
proved much harder to define. Their discovery awaited the
invention of the mfcroscope and the elaboration of scie nt ific
method, both experimental and statistical. It n?>w app ea rs
that in almost all organisms, both plant and anima^ t h e
ftiechanism of self-reproduction is sharply distinct fro m t h at
of self-maintenance. It may be called the genotypic S y S tem.

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

In opposition to the phenotypic system, it is locked away and
sheltered as far as possible From contact or direct interaction
with the environment. It consist? of the gene-complex — a
system of self-reproducing bodies or genes, arranged in a
definite order in larger bodies called chromosomes, and
detached in the act of reproduction within a unit of general
protoplasm (cytoplasm). The chemical behaviour of the
cytoplasm is determined by the genes, but the gene-complex
cannot survive and function without an envelope of cyto-
plasm: the two are interdependent, but with the gene-
Complex as dominant partner.

The mechanism of transmissible variation, again in almost
all organisms, is twofold — mutation or change in intrinsic
properties of parts of the gene-complex, and recombination
of already existing mutants to produce new variants. You
will observe that I expressly refer to transmissible variation.
One of the notable facts established by modern genetics is
the non-transmissibility of certain types of variation. Only
those in the gene-complex of the reproductive cells are per-
manently transmissible: those affecting all other parts of the
organism are not. Non-transmissible variance includes all
so-called somatic variation — variations in the character of
the individual body, whether occurring in the course of
normal development (as in the differentiation of various
tissues from the relatively undifferentiated ovum, spore, or
other reproductive body, or in the alternation of generations
in a moss or a fern); or induced by changes in the environ-
ment (as in the sun-tanning of white human beings, or the
production of worker bees by a restricted diet) ; or the result
of individual experience (as in the learning by solitary wasps
of the location of their burrows, or by birds of the nauseous
or dangerous properties of warningly coloured insects).

The two later categories of variation embrace all so-called
"acquired characters", so that the proof of their non-
transmissibi^itjr is a disproof of Lamarckism and all other
similar theories of evolution. The first ^category, however,
must be characterized as reproducible but genetically non-
transmissible. The distinction between transmissible and
non-transmissible variation coincides almost exactly with the
earlier distinction made by Weismann between girm-plasm

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

and soma. Though Weismann's original formulation needs
to be slightly modified in the light of later knowledge, the
opposition between germ-rjlasm and sopia is still basic to all
our genetic thinking. Some parts of the organism — in higher
animals all the somatic tissues — are debarred from playing
any role in reproduction, and variations in them cannot be
tAnsmitted; other parts — the gene-complexes of actual or
potential reproductive cells — are the organs of heredity, and
variations in them can be and are transmitted to later
generations. 1 *

Thus in the light of modern biology, variations fall into
the two opposed categories of genetic and non-genetic.
Furthermore, we can distinguish sharply between the mech-
anism # of maintenance — the soma, including not only the
living somatic cells but also their non-living products such
as horn or chitin; and the mechanism of transmission —
the germ-plasm, or more specifically the gene-complex or
genetic system in the reproductive cells.

However, the sharpness of the distinction tends to break
down in the simplest organisms, such as the bacteria, where
the germ-plasm is much less cut off from contact with the
environment; or the crystallizable viruses, which are in a
sense nothing but germ-plasm, and whose "soma" is pro-
vided by the tissues of their host.

The greatest present handicap to the science of man would
stem to lie in its lack of agreement in defining the objects of
study in the three members of the interlocking trinity of its
subject-matter*

The third member, the course* of psycho-socfel trans-
formation, I shall discuss later. As regards the mechanism
for maintaining psycho-social existence, there is by no means
agreement as to what should be analysed. This somewhat
startling fact erflerges clearly from works such as Bidney's
Theoretical Anthropology. Some anthropologists say society,

1 In this discussion I have neglected the plasmagenes, or se^f-reproducing
cytoplasmic factors in herldity. Plasmagenes do exist, notably in plants, but
they are few in number and small in importance compared witR the nuclear
genes, and furthermore are often subordinated to them in their effects. For
out purpose they thus constitute a minor and subordinate fraction of the
germ-plasm. •

c 65

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

others culture, still others the individuals who make up the
society or share thp culture: and within each sect there is
still a cleavage between the materialists and the mentalists
(if I may coin \ word) — between those who insist on a purely
or mainly materialist! interpretation of everything, and those
who want to explain human affairs solely or primarily in
psychological terms. There is not even agreement on the
definition of culture^ that central anthropological concept:
some anthropologists maintain that culture is an abstraction,
others that it is the sum of human activities, or of the
patterns of human behaviour within a given society, still
others that it includes all "artifacts, socifacts, and menti-
facts", to use Bidney's convenient terms for the different
types of products of a culture or human society. 1 #

A further confusion arises owing to two radical differences
between psychosocial and biological evolution- 1 — first, the
lack of any sharp distinction in the psycho-social sector
between soma and germ-plasm ; secondly, the presence of an
increasing trend toward convergence superimposed upon that
toward divergence. Culture, in the objectively definable sense
which seems natural to a biologist, is at one and the same
time both soma and germ-plasm, both a mechanism of main-
tenance and a mechanism of reproduction or transmission.
This statement needs some minor qualifications : for instance,
the system of material production is more concerned with
maintenance, the educational system more with transmission.

1 In some ways the situation in anthropology recalls that of biology some
fifty years back. Then we had the protagonists of comparative morphology
contending with those of physiological analysis; the violent (but as it turned
out unreal) quarrel between the biometrician r gradualists and selectionists and
the mendelian mutationists and anti-selectionists, the dispute between the
ultra-materialistic and the ultra-psychological students of animal behaviour;
the curious preformationist theories of Bateson; the confusion between genetic
determinant and character; the last stand of the Lamarckians and the vitalists
against the advancing regiments of the Mendelians and the mechanists.

To-day this confusion has been largely abolished, partly by the final disproof
of certain views, partly owing to the reconciliation of opposing theses in a
higher synthesis, and partly by a linking-up of separatist movements in a com-
bined attack on a unified front. We may reasonably hope that anthropology
will undergo a similar development.

66

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

But the material objects produced and the skills that produce
them also are directly transmissible (unlike the metabolic
products and activities of tjie animal soma) ; and the know-
ledge and attitudes transmitted by education are also directly
concerned with the maintenance of culture and the body
politic (unlike the germ-plasm securely tucked away within
the body organic).

This union of somatic and germinal functions'in culture is
another consequence of the new evolutionary mechanism
available to life in the psycho-social phase — the mechanism
of cultural tradition based on cumulative experience. This #
follows from the fact that cultural tradition depends on com-
munication. Since communication occurs both extensively,
in space, between contemporary members of a culture, and
progressively, in time, between individuals of different
generation^, tradition and the culture arising from it inevit-
ably combine maintenance and transmission functions — in
other words, serve both as psycho-social soma and germ-
plasm. Furthermore, transmission may occur by diffusion of
various sorts between cultures, as well as within single
streams of culture.

The new basis and mode of transmission and transforma-
tion available to psycho-social evolution has also important
consequences for its course, notably in leading to converg-
ence. Man differs radically from all preceding successful
t^jpes in not having diverged into numerous biologically
separate species and lineages. An incipient divergence, based
doubtless on geographical isolation, permitted the differ-
entiation of Homo sapiens into what in biology would be
called subspecies — the races of mankind, each physiologic-
ally adapted to its geographical habitat. But since most
human adaptation and improvement is cultural, genetic
divergence did not proceed further, and was soon overtaken
by the effects of genetic convergence, as man's expansive or
migratory urges brought previously isolated populations
into contact. Biologically, modern man has thus^ remained
one species, a single interbreeding group.

However, the two complementary processes, of evolu-
tionary divergence by increase of variety, and of evolutionary
advance marked by improvement in general organization

6 7

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

and leading to the emergence of new successful types, con-
tinued to take effect in the psycho-social sector, but in the
domain of culture. As in the biolpgical phase, major advance
proceeds by large steps, each marked by the spread of the
successful new type' of organization. Among obvious ex-
amples are the discovery and spread of agriculture, of urban*
civilization, of alphabetic writing, of monotheism, and of
science and'scientific method.

The complementary process of divergent cultural evolu-
tion has always been a striking feature of man's history, and
•was markedly accentuated in its later stag'es, after the
advance to the level of urban civilization. We need only
think of the range and variety of cultures in the ancient
world — Sumerian, Egyptian, Indus Valley, Hittite, .Assyr-
ian, Phoenician, and the rest. On the other hand, the same
unique trend toward convergence after divergence, seen in
the genetic make-up of man, operated also in his cultural
evolution: the main difference is that a much greater degree
of cultural than of biological divergence took place, and that
the degree of unity produced by cultural convergence is still
far below that reached on the genetic level. Whereas bio-
logical convergence must be achieved by physical inter-
breeding of divergent types, cultural convergence operates
by various forms of culture-contact and diffusion.

With this preliminary clearing of the air we are now in a
position to analyse cultural evolution in more detail. I mtfet
first justify the view that what evolves in the psycho-social
phase is c not primarily the genetic nature of man, or indi-
viduals, or society, or minds-in-society, but a new supra-
organismic entity, demanding an appellation of its own.
Culture is the appellation by which anthropologists denote
this central subject of their science.

Culture, if I understand it aright, is a shared or shareable
body of material, mental, and social constructions ("artifacts,
mentifacts, 4 and socifacts") created by human individuals
living in a society, but with characteristics not simply explic-
able by br directly deducible from a knowledge of the
psychological or physiological properties of human indi-
viduals, any more than the characteristics of life are simply
explicable by or directly deducible from a knowledge of the

68 ■

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

chemical and physical properties of inorganic matter, or
those of mind from a knowledge of the prpperties of neurons.
Culture has a material ba^js, in the shape of resources of
food, raw materials, and energy; but thougji the quantity
and quality of material resources availible will influence or
•condition the character and development of a culture, they
do not determine it in detail, so that differences between
cultures are no more explicable by or deducible from a
knowledge of their material basis than from that of their
psychological basis in the minds of individuals.

In describing and analysing a culture, we thus need to
distinguish a number of distinct components. First, the
material or resource basis : secondly, the basis of communica-
tion on language; thirdly, skills and techniques, including
tools and machines, dress and adornment, buildings and
vehicles, aftd works of art; then systems of social organiza-
tion, including kinship and marriage systems, legal, political,
economic and administrative systems, and status systems
such as class and caste; then knowledge systems, including
education, science, and higher learning; and finally attitude
systems, ranging from manners to religions, and including
personal and social ethics, tabus, and rituals.

But the mass enumeration of cultural components is
obviously not enough. We must also undertake the analysis
of culture as a self-operating and self-reproducing system.
I fere, the best method of approach would seem to be the
functional one, analogous to the broadly physiological ap-
proach in biology. How does a culture work? What opera-
tions and functions must it perform* and how and with what
organs does it do so? The chief alternative is the structural
or morphological approach, analogous to the method of
comparative anatomy in zoology. This is obviously useful as
a first step, but # can and should be incorporated in a broad
functional analysis. It is dangerous when utilized to the
exclusion of the functional approach, or as dominant to it.

The dangers of o^er-emphasis on the structural approach
are evidenced by the history of zoology. As Radf wrote in
his History of Biological Theories (1930), many zoologists in
the late nineteenth century were so busy comparing one
structure Vith another that they forgot to ask what the

- 69

NEW BOT'ILES FOR NEW WINE

structures were or did. The first effect was the growth of a
forest of largely hypothetical (and we may add also largely
sterile) family trees; the seconc^ was a compensatory over-
reaction in favour of physiology and experimental analysis.
The next step was an* attempt at reconciling purely structural
anatomy with purely experimental physiology in the concept 1
of the organism as a working or functional whole ; and tne
final result 'has been the development of an all-round ap-
proach (as evidenced, for instance, in J. Z. Young's recent
The Life of Vertebrates), in which comparative anatomy,
though still basic, is treated functionally, physiology has
become broadly contparative, and both have been combined
in an ecological-evolutionary approach.

I feel sure that a similar synthesis or reconciliation will
take place in anthropology, though the details of the process
will be different — for instance, the comparative anatomy
of structural patterns is much easier to study in zoology
than in anthropology, while the reverse is often true for the
analysis of function.

Let me now return to the problem of culture and its
investigation. Culture in the broad objective view appears
sub specie evolutionis as a self-maintaining system or organ-
ization of intercommunicating human beings and their
products, or if we wish to be a little more precise, of the
results of the intercommunication of the minds of human
individuals in society.

Though a culture thus depends on individual human
beings and their psychological activities, its characteristics,
as I have already emphasized, cannot be deduced from
theirs. The intrinsic (genetic) psycho-physical properties of
the human population of a society, and the intrinsic peculiar-
ities of single individuals within it, can and do to some
extent condition the form and developmenl of the culture,
but do not determine it. In fact the boot is on the other foot,
or at least the emphasis is the other way round : the effective
(or in biol6gical parlance the phenotypic) characterization
and achievements of human beings in a society are to a very
large extent the result of the pattern of culture in which the
human individuals live and the cultural forces which ptoy
upon them.

70

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

The studies of Kroeber on genius have shown that
geniuses appear — in other words, that • exceptionally gifted
individuals are able to resize their talents effectively — not
at a constant or even approximately constant rate in time,
nor with a uniform extension in different areas, but in bursts;
apd that these bursts are related to the stage of development
of the culture into which the potential geniuses are born.

Ogburn and Thomas have demonstrated that the pro-
gress of scientific discovery shows § a somewhat similar
phenomenon: outstanding discoveries and inventions are
often and perhaps usually made independently by more than*
one man at about the same date. Here again the determining
factor is the stage and type of cultural development.

This fact of multiple independent discovery is of course
only a special, though outstanding, feature of what many
thinkers have noted — the intrinsic momentum of science.
Once a science has reached the stage of having a coherent
theoretical basis, it will inevitably proceed (provided it is
not discouraged by authority) to make further discoveries
and further extensions of its theory. Tt becomes, in fact, a
quasi-autonomous cultural entity, an organization of facts,
ideas, and practices which is bound to progress until it has
exhausted its possibilities — in other words, has realized the
implications of its theoretical basis.

Analogous phenomena are found in other cultural fields;
fbr instance, the localized outbursts of masterpieces and the
deterministic trends of style in the arts, as in ancient Greek
sculpture, or in European painting since the Renaissance;
the development of Christian tKeology during the first
millennium a.d., and of scholastic philosophy during the
second.

Indeed, this intrinsic momentum appears to be a general
property of all cultural organs involving creative thought or
activity. It results in trends of cultural evolution. These
resemble in an interesting way the trends of improvement
to be seen in biological evolution : both types oT trend con-
tinue in the same general direction for a considerable period
of time, until they reach a limit of some sort, when they
ttecome stabilized (and often enfeebled, reduced or ex-
tinguished).

71

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The limit, when the biological or cultural system has
"exhausted its capacities for development", "fully realized
its possibilities", or however else jve may describe it, may be
determined eitker intrinsically, by the very nature of the
evolving system or faculty, or extrinsically, through the
interference of some other system, or by the operation <jf
external forces. In biology we have examples of these diff-
erent types bf limits, in the limitation of visual acuity by
minimum size of visyal cells; of size and intelligence in
insects by their tracheal system ; and of accuracy of tempera-
ture-regulation in mammals by the efficacy of the forces of
natural selection. I leJve it to my anthropological colleagues
to find comparable examples in cultural evolution.

I must add an important caveat. Some "culturologists"
and some believers in economic or social determination
maintain that individuals as such play no part in "moulding
human history, but are wholly moved by superorganic social
and cultural forces. However, while it is clear that the "great
man" theories, according to which single individuals are
responsible for all or most of the decisive advances and
regressions, turns and twists of history, cannot possibly be
upheld, neither can the extreme opposite view. 1

It is one of the uniquenesses of man that in him the broad
trend toward individuation and the greater importance of
the individual organism and the individual event, which
characterizes evolution in general, has reached and passed &
critical point. In the inorganic phase, differences between
individual atoms and molecules are submerged in the statis-
tical behaviour of aggregates. In biology, individual events
such as mutations produce the differences between individual
genes which provide the basis for- evolutionary improve-
ment; and in higher animals, notably birds ( and mammals,
selection operates largely on the differences between the
highly individuated single organisms within a species, though
the operation is still on a statistical basis. But in man,
individual differences are no longer wKolly submerged in

1 Even Plekhanov (The Role of the Individual in History, International
Publishers, New York, 1946), while upholding cultural determinism in
general ("For a great man, the general character of his epoch is 'empirically
given necessity' ")» admits the importance of the exceptional individual.

72

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

statistical processes, and the behaviour of single individuals
may affect the course of psycho-social ev^ution. Thus, while
the Mongols would assuredly have become an important
organized power in the Middle Ages' the .extent of that
power would certainly have been less and its form different
.if it ha$l not been for Genghiz Khan; and similar considera-
tiftns apply to the influence of Napoleon on the development
of post-revolutionary France.

The importance of individuals is perhaps most clearly
evident in the arts, for it is of the essence of a great work of
art that it shcfuld be individually unique. In Italian painting, .
for instance, while inescapable culturaUforces were influenc-
ing a high percentage of talented men to become artists, and
were producing overall trends of style, it is the masterpieces
of individuals which have been of decisive value for man and
his cultural evolution. Although in a different culture, such
as that of modern America or Russia, Giotto and Titian,
Michelangelo and Leonardo would quite likely not have
become artists, and would certainly have painted quite
different kinds of pictures, the fact remains that if these
particular individuals had not existed, not only would the
world be a poorer place, but the history of art would have
been different.

Since scientific discovery is a cumulative process, and
since it concerns objective fact, the distinctive role of indi-
viduals is not so marked in the sciences as it is in the arts, and
simultaneous discovery is not infrequent. All the same, it
is impossible to believe that the advance of science would have
been so speedy, or indeed quite the same, without inflividuals
like Newton or Einstein, Even where independent or simul-
taneous discovery has occurred, the actual contribution or
effect of one individual may be much greater than that of the
others. Thus Wallace hit on the theory of evolution by
means of natural selection independently of Darwin ; yet we
can be certain that the advance of biology into its evolu-
tionary stage woulcthave been both slower and? different if
Darwin had not existed.

An example which illustrates both aspects of the relation
between individual and culture is that of particulate inherit-
ance'. As is well known, Mendel discovered and published

c 73

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

the basic facts of this and established its elementary laws.
But the development of science as a cultural process was
apparently not ripe for their acceptance, and his discovery
remained ignqred until it was Ve-made independently by
three workers thirty-four years later. Only after this did
Mendel become recognized as the founder of the science of«
genetics. 1

Here I must make a brief methodological divagation. The
method of approach to any scientific problem is clearly of
extreme importance, and will to a large extent determine the
. type of discovery made. Putting the matter the other way
round, the method af approach is itself largely dictated by
the type of answer you want to obtain : it is, in fact, a kind of
question. Furthermore, the question will alter with tipie and
the progress of discovery: when one method has yielded the
main crop of answers that it could be expected to* provide, it
is time to ask another kind of question, by adopting a new
method. A biologist cannot suggest methods for anthro-
pology to practise. What he can do, however, is to summarize
the various methods of approach adopted in biology, in the
hope that anthropologists may be able to discover implica-
tions helpful for their own science.

The original approach inevitably was descriptive: bio-
logists set out to describe as fully and accurately as possible
the variety of organisms and the phenomena which they
exhibit. This approach is designed to answer the basic
question, What are the facts?

The descriptive approach was soon supplemented by the
comparative. This was first focused round the question of
grouping or classification. What pattern or system of char-
acters does an assemblage of organisms have in common;
and what distinct types are there at various levels of char-
acterization? This led to the classification ot organisms in a
hierarchical system of groups — species grouped in genera,
genera in families, families in orders, orders in classes,
and so on. * e

Implicit in such a system was the idea of physical relation-
ship. With the acceptance of the fact of evolution, this
implicit postulate became explicit, and the question posed by
the comparative method became correspondingly altered;

74

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

behind common patterns, men were reaching for common
origins. The result was a phylogenetic classification, a classi-
fication intended to cxpre^p evolutionary descent and rela-
tionships rather than just a convenient pigeon-holing system.
The animals placed in the order Carnivora, for instance,
•wjre all presumed to be descended from a single common
carnivore ancestor, and a common mammalian ancestor was
postulated for them and all the other orders placed in the
class Mammalia. t

However, while common ancestry accounted for the
shared resemblances of a group, the oroblem of the differ- <
ences exhibited by its members remaihed. For this, a new
method of approach was needed, a method which we may
call that of differential analysis. It asked the question, What
is the cause of the differences between the members of a
related gr&up? The method has been most successfully
(because most easily) employed in analysing the visible
differences between minor varieties of a single interbreeding
population and demonstrating that those which were herit-
able depended on differences in hereditary unit-factors, later
called genes. The modern science of genetics is built on this,
the mendelian method, of analysing after crossing.

When the different forms are populations inhabiting geo-
graphically different areas, such as two geographical races
or subspecies of one species, extrinsic factors also must be
talken into account. In such cases it is found that their differ-
ences, though due genetically to differences in their intrinsic
genie make-up, also have a historical component, which is
correlated with the geographical or 'ecological difference in
their habitats, and with the degree and duration of biological
isolation between them. .The differences are thus the result
of an evolutionary process of divergence requiring time.

Finally, when the different forms cannot be interbred to
yield a fertile cross, as occurs between different species or
higher taxonomic categories, the genie factors involved in
producing the diffft-ence cannot be experimentally dis-
■ covered, and can be only partially deduced through analogy
and other comparative procedures. In such cases, where
e^erimental crossing is impossible and the number of
causative Tactor-differences is large, special methods of

75

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

multi-variate analysis may be needed to give satisfactory
results. 1 r

However, there are limits to tjie usefulness of such differ-
ential analytic r methods. Mendelian analysis, for instance,
tells us that a difference^ say in flower-colour between two
varieties of plant, is due to a difference between two genetic*
factors or genes. 2 But it tells us nothing, or at least nothing
worth knowing, about what the genes are> or of how they
work. To obtain answers to such questions we must utilize
other methods of approach — constitutive as well as differ-
ential, integrative as well as analytic. By constitutive I mean
an approach involving questions as to the constitution or
nature of what is being investigated; and by integrative I
mean one which attempts to comprehend the interrelation-
ships and total pattern of a system of analytically detectable
components. •

In regard to genes, constitutive inquiry has already shown
that they are portions of chromosomes, that they consist of a
certain kind of nucleic acid in association with proteins, and
possess a molecular structure permitting binary multiplica-
tion by self-copying. And the integrative approach has led
to the concept of the gene-complex, a system of interrelated
units with mutually adjusted interactions. For the problems
of complex yet unitary patterns, Gestalt and other similar
approaches are required, and non-quantitative mathematical
formulations of patterned systems are being attempted. '

The constitutive approach soon demands vectorial dia-
chronic enlargement, by the addition of a directed time-
dimension. We then ask questions about processes — how
does a given initial state of things become converted in time
into a different state? In genetics, for instance, we try to
unite gene and character by considering them as the end-
points of a single chemical and physiologicaf process or chain
of processes — and in micro-organisms are already meeting
with considerable success.

Similarly, once we have introduced a •historical component
into our *study of differences between taxonomic groups
(subspecies, species, and higher categories) and have arrived

1 See, e.g., C. P. Stroud, 1953, Systematic Zoology (Washington), a, p. ?6.

2 Strictly speaking, two alleles, or forms of one kind of gene?

76

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

at the conclusion that evolutionary divergence has been at
work, we are inevitably impelled to ask what trends are
involved, what is their shjLpe and their direction, how do
they operate, and how do they produce <heir observed
results? This approach, in the hands of men like Simpson
ayd Ford, Mayr and Dobzhansky, is already giving us inter-
esting answers in terms of the effects'of natural selection in
different circumstances — adaptive improvemenf, minor non-
adaptive diversification, trends of specialization, parallel
evolution, limits to improvement, stabilization, and so forth,
so that we are beginning to work out a science of evolution-*
ary process. 9

The evolutionary biologist, fortunate in the more mature
stage of development which his science has reached, may
perhaps be permitted to suggest some lines of study to the
anthropologist. In the first place, an evolutionary approach
seems to me essential. We shall never fully understand
human culture unless we look at it as a portion of the evolu-
tionary process — both a product of past evolution and a basis
for possible future evolution.

The evolutionary approach in anthropology has been
bedevilled by false starts and false premises — notably the
erroneous idea that biological evolution could be represented
by a single straight line of inevitable progress, and the
Comtian conversion of this into an evolutionary straitjacket
for culture.

When anthropologists realize the fact that evolution
always involves divergence as well as advance, stabilization
as well as improvement, and when they have reached a fuller
understanding of the mechanisms of cultural maintenance,
transmission, and transformation, we may reasonably fore-
cast a broadly similar course for anthropology, including the
prospect of an eventual triumphant synthesis.

If anthropology is a science, then for anthropologists
culture must be defined, not philosophically or ^metaphysic-
ally, nor as an absfl-action, nor in purely subjective terms,
but as something which can be investigated by tRe methods
of scientific inquiry, a phenomenal process occurring in space
aftid time. The process has mental (subjective) as well as
material {objective) components, but both of these can be

77

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

studied naturalistically. As a naturalistic and operative entity,
the culture of a givfen society cannot be understood merely
as the sum of the behaviour and products of the individuals
comprised in the society. It is composed of super-individual
patterned systems of activity, potential as well as actual, all to
a certain degree integrated in an overall pattern of the*who|p .

In any scientific attempt to study and understand cultures,
it is the patterned systems that are important and significant,
rather than the individual activities in which they issue.
Thus, in human communication, Cassirer cites de Saussure's
1 distinction between la langue — the super-individual system
of grammar and syntax — and la parole — the actual words or
way of speaking used by particular individuals. We find the
same distinction in every cultural activity — in law, between
the legal system of rules and precedents and its specific
application in particular cases; in art, between a* style and
the individual works of art produced; in social structure,
between a system of local government, say, and the actual
work of local bodies; in science, between a comprehensive
theory and the mass of phenomena which it ties together; in
kinship relations, between the theoretical system and the
way it works out — or does not work out — in everyday life;
in morality, between the systems of tabus or ethical injunc-
tions and individual moral actions.

Further, we observe ihat a cultural pattern-system may be
either latent or patent, either needing to be deduced from thffe
individual phenomena or already consciously formulated by
the culture. As is to be expected a priori, conscious formula-
tion is a later development. Thus all languages are highly
complex systems, but it is only late in human development
that the system is consciously formulated in rules of grammar
and syntax; and theories of aesthetics do n^t emerge until
after millennia of the practice of art. Even where some
conscious intellectual formulation exists ab initio, its extent
and its precision will in general increase with time. Thus, in
religion there is the development from flflid and non-rational
myth to precise and highly rationalized theology; while
science grows from a mere recognition of empirical regulari-
ties into an elaborate system of theories and laws capable df
increasingly precise mathematical formulation.

78 •

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

This increasing patency of cultural pattern-systems in
psycho-social evolution is analogous to the increasing differ-
entiation of functional org^pic systems in biological evolution.
An Amoeba has no visibly differentiated systems of support,
locomotion, circulation, digestion, conduction, sense-percep-
tjon, cn* reproduction ; among Metazoa, a separate circulatory
system did not appear until the Annelid level of organization
was reached, a temperature-regulating system not before the
later Mesozoic : sense-organs such a§ eyes and ears show a
steadily increasing degree of differentiation and precision:
behaviour-systems become more differentiated (with greatea
variety of instincts), and at the same tfme more flexible and
precisely adjustable (with the development of learning cap-
acity)* But since biological evolution depends essentially on
the self-reproduction of matter, and cultural evolution on
that of mfnd, it is inevitable that the differentiation of organic
functional systems will be manifested in increased material
specialization, that of cultural systems in increased mental
specialization — that is to say, increasingly full, precise, and
conscious formulation.

With these preliminary considerations out of the way, let
me try to define and analyse the cultural process a little
further. A culture consists of the self-reproducing or repro-
ducible products of the mental activities of a group of human
individuals living in a society. These can be broadly divided
fnto artifacts — material objects created for carrying out
material functions; socifacts — institutions and organizations
for providing the framework of a social or political unit and
for maintaining social relations between its members; and
mentifacts — mental constructions which provide the psycho-
logical framework of a culture and carry out intellectual,
aesthetic, spiritual, ethical or other psychological functions. •

The categories inevitably overlap, since all cultural activi-
ties have a mental componer r, all artifacts have been shaped
by mind, all mentifacts have a material basis or^ vehicle, and
all cultures are emHbdied in societies. Thus a piece of pottery
may be both a useful artifact and a beautiful* mentifact;
socifacts like codes of law and morals incorporate much of
Spiritual and ethical mentifacts; and we all know how the
intellectual mentifacts we call scientific theories and laws

79

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

become transposed into technological artifacts. Nevertheless,
the distinction is a useful one.

A more satisfactory analysis is jjnade possible by changing
the basis of classification of cultural elements from origin to
function. In such a teleo-functional view, we perceive that
every culture has certain components. In the first place, it
exists in a particular material environment, and has a certain
material basis. The environment does not determine the
culture, but does conation and may limit it — for instance,
through extremes of climate, or the prevalence of debilitating
•disease.

Secondly, the mateVial basis, though by no means the sole
determinant of culture, has a still greater influence : it is not
possible for a society dependent on hunting or food-gather-
ing to develop the kind of culture found in agricultural
peasant societies, or for a pre-scientific society to develop the
kind of culture found in technological civilizations based on
machine-power.

Then all cultures are embodied in societies, and all
societies must have a structure. Cultures therefore must
include institutions and other social components. The most
obvious of these are kinship systems, law, armed forces, and
administration, together with political and economic institu-
tions on the one hand, codes of manner and social customs
on the other. Functionally, they may be classified into those
which subserve the survival and well-being of the social unit
as such, and those which regulate the personal relations of
its members. Alternatively, they can be grouped under the
heads of authority and custom. In addition, there is social
quantity: the number of people included in a given social
group, and still more the density «of population, have a
marked effect on the culture.

We also have the material components of culture (as
opposed to its material basis). These include utensils, tools,
buildings, vehicles, machines, manufactures, and industrial
products. Functionally they can be classified according to
the human *needs and desires which they subserve — nourish-
ment, health, shelter, clothing, enjoyment, adornment, com-
munication, and so forth. The type of material production
has repercussions on social organization : thus, industrializa-

80

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

tion has involved the supersession of guilds of artisans by
trade unions, and the rise of the joint stock company and the
giant firm or ring. It alsojias had repercussions on thought
and ideas.

But before proceeding further I must mention the function
qf communication. This is fundamental: all culture depends
on communication between individuals and between genera-
tions. The basic cultural organ of communication is language,
so that linguistics must always be a basic branch of anthro-
pology. Th^ effectiveness of transmission of communication
is later enhanced by various inventions — writing, thtf
alphabet, printing, telegraphy, radio.*

Other methods of communication are provided by symbols,

drama (including the cinema), painting and sculpture, and
in spfcciafways by architecture and music. But with these we
reach the last category of cultural components — those with
primarily mental or psychological functions, as against
primarily material or primarily social functions. For while
language is the medium of communication, the arts provide
mentifacts— organized constructions of significance to be
communicated from one human mind to others. Symbols
like the cross or a national flag have an intermediate function.
They have a denotative function like words, and can serve in
the same sort of way as do recognition-markings and other
releaser patterns in animals; but they can also function as
vehicles of complex and multiple significance.

Mentifacts thus serve as the psychological framework of
culture, the mental organs of man in society. They express
awareness or experience in various organized ways — aesthetic
and symbolic as well as intellectual — and communicate and
transmit these, organizations of experience to others. As
Pfere Teilhard dc Chardin and others have spoken of the
noosphere constituted by human culture, as opposed to the
biosphere of organic life, I have ventured to suggest that their
function might be trailed noetic, and collectively ^hey would
then constitute the noosystem.

Besides symbols and works of art, the noetic components
flf ^ culture include rituals and formal celebrations, beliefs
and superstitions, mythology and theology, tradition and

and still others by the various

81

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

history, philosophy and science. They include the totality of
accumulated and available factual knowledge as well as the
organized formulations of knowledge provided by mathe-
matics and logic?, scientific theories, and philosophical ideas;
and finally the assumptions and attitudes that characterize
a culture, including the vitally important epistemotegic^l
premises on which its thinking is conducted.

Such an analysis is essentially static. But the biologist is
driven taview culture historically, as cultural evolution, and
to see cultural evolution as a part of the evolutionary pro-
cess as a whole, albeit a special part, with its own peculiar
methods and results. (3nce we adopt this approach, we cannot
escape the conclusion that the most important characteristic
of a culture is what I have called its noosystem — the sum of
its mentifacts, and the way they are organized.

Artifacts often give a readier characterization and indeed
may provide the easiest or, in the case of extinct cultures, the
only measures of classification: institutions and other soci-
facts express more simply the physiology of a culture — the
ways of its social working. But its evolutionary position and
possibilities are ultimately determined by the quantity and
quality of its awareness and the modes in which it is
organized.

It is true that a culture may appear as in large measure
determined by its economic and material basis; or, as by
Rousseau or in a rather different way by Marx, institutions
may be regarded as barriers to progress set up by vested
interests, .which need only be destroyed for an ideal society
of men to come automatically into being. Yet these again are
but partial or short-term views. The existing material basis
and economic organization of a culture depend on the util-
ization or application of past knowledge. Ag^in, institutions
and their forms — like a church or a monarchy, a council of
elders, or a civil service — depend on human ideas and
beliefs about human nature and about men's relations with
each other t and with the universe: ancf though they may
become fossilized or corrupt and impede or resist progress,
yet even if they were swept away, new institutional embodi-
ments of human ideas and beliefs would have to be qon-
structed to serve as the culture's social framework!

82

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

Once more, biological parallels are available. The material
environment does in large measure determine the characters
of its organic inhabitants— think of the contrast between the
faunas of the deep sea and the surface waters, between the
floras of the sub-arctic, the desert, and the humid tropics,
furthermore, what an animal type inherits from the past, in
the way of genetically determined anatomy and physiology
and behaviour, conditions and limits its cap&cities in the
present and its potentialities for the future. But the environ-
mental determination is not complete, as is shown by the
coexistence of high and low types in the same environments?
or the evolutionary emergence of qtiite new types in an
essentially unchanged habitat; and the limitations imposed
by the framework of genetic structure cannot be transcended
by abolishing that framework, but only by adaptively altering
it. Further, comparative anatomy gives only a static picture,
and comparative physiology only an immediate one. Fuller
comprehension awaited their synthesis in the concept of
evolutionary process.

We can to-day obtain a picture of biological evolution as a
whole. It is a process of deployment of self-reproducing and
self-varying matter, directed by the forces of natural selection.
It involves two main types of change — diversification and
advance. Diversification connotes an increase of specialized
variety. Advance connotes a rise in the upper level of organ-
isation, both of material physiology and of awareness: it
involves the realization of fuller control or fuller exploitation
of the resources of the environment, fuller self-regylation or
independence of its arbitrary or fiostile forces, and an in-
creasingly comprehensive and increasingly accurate picture
of its events and operations. From the point of view of life as
a whole, diversification also represents an advance, for it
means a fuller and more efficient exploitation of resources in
favour of a larger and richer biomass. And diversification
and advance taken together involve the emergence of new or
fuller realizations df the self-reproducing material of life.

Biological relativity holds throughout the 'process of
organic evolution, in that all organisms show adaptation: if
rtiis # were not so they would have become extinct. Yet this
temporal^ relatedness of immediate adaptation is in point

83

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

of fact transcended by a more inclusive and dynamic related-
ness: we must also consider the relation of the organic type
to the general process of biological evolution — a directional
relatedness which takes account not only of its position in
the process, but also of its direction of change, in relation to
an increased realization of those possibilities of life concerned
with a fuller awareness and a more effective exploitation of
the environment.

In the psycho-social section, the same broad scheme of
evolutionary relatedness still holds, but the process operates
with different methods and with different principles of
action. Once the cumulative transmission of experience was
available, and accordingly mind as well as matter became
capable of self-reproduction and self-variation, it was inevit-
able that evolution would take place overwhelmingly in the
cultural rather than in the biological sphere, ana with an
enormous acceleration of tempo; and equally inevitable that
the noetic or mentifact system would be the most important
part of evolving cultures.

With the aid of reason and imagination, cultures build up
a volume of more or less extensive and more or less organized
factual knowledge, together with resultant ideas and ways of
thinking, and a system of more or less coherent and more or
less conscious beliefs and attitudes, together with resultant
values and purposes. It is these which constitute the decisive
long-term factors in cultural evolution.

In the long run, knowledge is the more important, be-
cause it conditions and modifies the beliefs and attitudes.
Knowledge is potential aption and potential control, both in
the external material world and in the inner world of thought,
valuation, and belief.

Cultures, too, all show adaptation : if they jvere not adapt-
ively related to the business of maintaining themselves in
their environments they would have become extinct. The
result is cultural relativism — the fact that no cultural ab-
solutes can 6e shown to exist, whether ill the cognitive, the
aesthetic, oV the moral sphere. Insistence on the relativism of
human values, especially perhaps moral values, has been very
fashionable in certain circles. Just as the biological relativisift
of organic adaptation led some biologists to dispute the

84

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

validity of distinguishing higher and lower types of organ-
ism, and so to deny the possibility of anything which properly
could be called advance or progress iij biological evolution,
so the discovery of the cultural relativism ofcmoral and other
values has led a number of social scientists to dispute the idea
that one culture can be higher than another, and so to deny
the very possibility of advance in cultural evolution — in
other words, of human progress.

However, as in biology, the adaptive relations subsumed
under the head of cultural relativism are essentially tem-
porary or immediate, and are transcended by a more inclusive
and dynamic evolutionary relatedness* In human evolution,
however, the properties of the culture (including the speed
and direction of its change) must be considered in relation
not only to the effective utilization of its environmental re-
sources, but also to the satisfying enjoyment, by its individual
members, of their capacities for experience and achievement,
for knowing and feeling, willing and acting. The scale of
culture thus has a dual measure: it is related not only to
efficiency of exploitation but also to fulfilment of potentiality.

In a broad view, the overriding importance of knowledge
and its organization for progressive cultural evolution is
obvious. It was the capacity for cumulative transmission of
experience which enabled animals to become men, and per-
mitted our Pliocene ancestors to pass the critical point
between biological and psycho-social evolution and to open
the path toward human evolutionary dominance. All the
major steps toward greater efficiency of material exploitation
or of social organization, and toward alleviating or improving
the human lot, have depended on increase or improvements
in knowledge of some, sort or other. The improved know-
ledge may be in the form of skill, as revealed by the slow
improvement of tool-making techniques in the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic. Or it may be constituted by an empirical
discovery, like that of agriculture, which initiated an entirely
new and higher fevel of cultural organization; or by an
invention concerned with the transmission of* experience,
like writing, printing, or radio. Or it may be in the form of
^n improved organization of knowledge and experience, as in
ancient Greek philosophy, or in the comprehensive world-

«5

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

»

picture organized by Christian theology. Or it may be pure
scientific discovery with immediate applications, like the
discovery of bacteria and its application to the treatment of
infectious disease; or pure scientific discovery without im-
mediate practical application, but with an effect on man's
world-picture and his view of destiny, like the discovery of
the fact and mechanism of evolution. Or, finally, it may be
in the form of a new and improved organization of assump-
tions and methods of approach, as in the adoption of scientific
method in field after field of inquiry during the past three
centuries, with simultaneous abandonment of magical
assumptions or explanations in supernatural terms.

Of these advances, the most important for cultural evolu-
tion are those which open up possibilities of quite new modes
of material existence; which provide radical improvements
in the mechanism of cultural transmission ; which alter man's
general approach to the intellectual and practical problems
of life; and above all those which lead to a new picture or
model of human destiny. The effectiveness of such organiza-
tions of knowledge can be estimated by the degree to which
they lead to the emergence of new types of cultural organiza-
tion, comparable to new dominant types in biological evolu-
tion, which spread and increase at the expense of previous
types. Examples are afforded by the spread of neolithic
culture (based on agriculture), of civilization or urban culture
(based on writing and division of labour), of Christian and
Islamic culture (based on new pictures of human destiny),
and, in recent centuries, of industrial and technological
culture (based on scientific method in the natural sciences).

Those which involve a new picture of human destiny are
the most comprehensive, and may include elements of all
the others. They are, in fact, the true noeti^ microscosms,
and their importance can be estimated in terms of their
relatedness to the overall process of reality. The more fully
and the more accurately they internalize the evolutionary
process, the more effective will they be, In the long run, as
systems of potential action.

From this angle, the most important single step in cultural
advance is that which we are now in process of taking — the?
application of scientific method to the problem 6f man's

86

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

evolutionary possibilities. To start with, it markedly changes
the directedness of culture, and may even reverse the sign
of that directedness. Most noetic systems consciously or un-
consciously look backward, are based on traditional authority
or on a nostalgic belief in a prior "Golden Age or state
of perfection, and the cultures built on them are accord-
ingly in large measure resistant to change, and especially
to the idea of change. A few noetic systems have looked
forward instead of backward, but usually to some millenary
and final fulfilment. In so far as Imperial Rome had a
conscious £oal besides that of increased power, it was t(j
impose the Pax Romana and the efficient Roman system
on the rest of the world. Soviet Communism deliberately
proclaims the classless socialist State as its inevitable mil-
lennial goal. But in so far as the goal is a final one, it limits
and distorts the process of cultural change by imposing
on it both the myth of an ideal but static end-state, and the
dogma of authoritative truth. In Marxist Communism we
can see clearly how the myth of an ideal final state has
taken the place of the salvation myths of earlier religions, and
how the authoritarianism of Marxist doctrine can impede
scientific and cultural freedom just as much as the Church
ever did in the past.

The scientific method of acquiring truth and knowledge
is free from these objections, since it explicitly recognizes
that man's knowledge can never be complete or his truths
absolute. But it does enable man to discover more knowledge
and to arrive at a fuller approximation to truth, and so at
once introduces a positive vectoHal component* into any
culture which practises it. However, so lon^ as it is applied
in a limited field (for instance only in the natural sciences), or
is still liable to be overridden by dogmatic authority (as in
Soviet biology in recent decades), it has no more than partial
importance. Only when a forwardly directed, dynamic ideal
of cultural advance is combined with scientific method, or
— what comes to the same thing — when scientific method is
consciously adopted and prosecuted in all fields of human
endeavour, only then can the noetic system begin to be a
fcrue microcosm, only then will cultural relativism become
transcended by a more comprehensive relatedness, and

»7

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

cultural change begin to adapt itself adequately to the overall
evolutionary process of greater realization of inherent
possibilities.

The capacity, for the cumulative transmission of experi-
ence marked a critical point in the evolutionary process —
the passage from a biological to a cultural mode of evolution.
The attainment of a correctly related noetic system will
mean the passage of a critical point within the process of
cultural evolution — from the proto-cultural to the full cul-
tural phase, from mafniy unconscious evolution to change
^consciously directed. And just as the passage of the former
critical point permitted the emergence of man as a new
dominant type, the psycho-social type, within evolution as a
whole, so the passage of the latter will permit the emergence
of a new and dominant pattern of organization within the
psycho-social process, and will enable the huma** type to
fulfil itself by relating its modes of change to its inherent
possibilities. It will permit the full humanization of man.

But I must not soar too far up into the clouds : the noo-
sphere has its earthly base, which it quits at its peril. I will
conclude with a re-statement (illuminated, I hope, by the
foregoing analysis) of the evolutionist's view of human
culture.

Biological and cultural evolution resemble each other in
both showing a combination of two major trends, one to
differentiation or divergence, the other to improvement on-
advance. In addition, cultural evolution shows a trend which
is almost absent in animal evolution — toward convergence
and consequently toward an eventual unity superimposed
upon diversity. Both of thfese trends are subject to limitations,
and in point of fact frequently reach fjnal limits. In biological
evolution, the amount of divergence possible to a group such
as the teleost fish or the birds is limited b^ the variety of
habitats or ecobiological niches which are available to their
type of structural or physiological organization. It is, for
instance, impossible for teleost fish to produce a type
adapted to terrestrial desert existence, and equally impossible
for birds to increase their variety by colonizing the deep sea.

Occasionally, however, a biological lineage finds its way
out of its limitations and up to a new level of organization.

88

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

Such major steps in advance are recognizable ex post factor
by the emergence of the lineage as a new dominant type,
which demonstrates its dominance by its rapid development
into a new fanning-out or combined^ divergence and im-
provement. This did not occur among either birds or teleost
figh: they both appear to be incapable of breaking through
their organizational limitations. It did occur, however, among
body fish as a whole, when one lungfish-like linkage evolved
to the amphibian level of organization capable of terrestrial
life; even more strikingly, it occurred among the Reptiles,
when one lineage of one of the numerous major divergent*
types of the reptilian radiation gave rise to the new dominant
type we call the Mammalia. The other reptile lineages,
though diverging to produce types as strikingly different as
snakes and dinosaurs, tortoises and crocodiles, flying ptero-
dactyls arid whale-like ichthyosaurs, all remained on the
reptilian level of organization, and have either become
extinct or have persisted on that level up to the present.

Biological classification aims at reflecting the facts of
biological evolution. It is often assumed by zoologists that
it does so by distinguishing groups according to their
ancestry. Each taxonomic group, according to this view, is
distinguishable because it is descended from one ancestral
lineage. Thus, all species of weasels and stoats are pigeon-
holed together in the genus Mustela because they are all
descended from a single weasel-like ancestor; all families of
carnivores are pigeon-holed in the order Carnivora because
even such divergent creatures as seals, tigers, b^ars, and
weasels are all decended from a single proto-carnivore
lineage; all orders of mammals in the class Mammalia
because their universal possession of hair, milk, and warm-
blood is only ccynprehensible if they are all descended from
a single proto-mammalian lineage with these properties.

Recently, however, it is becoming apparent that these
taxonomic assumptions are fully valid only for a classification
concerned with evolutionary divergence. Others are needed
for a classification which also takes account of evolutionary
advance. Thus G. G. Simpson in his Meaning of Evolution
sflates that the latest and dominant group of bony fish "called
Teleostei'in formal classification", is "apparently a struc-

89

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

tural (and functional) grade" independently evolved by
several lines; and this parallel evolution of improvements
appears to be a common feature in smaller-scale deploy-
ments, like thai of thp horse family (Equidae).

Actually, the idea of a common grade of improvement in
place or in addition to that of a common ancestry is implicit
in much taxonomic practice. Thus from the strict common-
ancestry poiht of view, birds and mammals are parts of the
great reptilian radiation, and should be classed as orders on
a par with other reptilian orders like Crocodiles or Dino-
saurs. However, they both developed such outstanding
improvements in general organization that they became new
dominant groups more varied and more abundant than any
reptilian order — the birds primarily in the air and the
mammals primarily on the land. For this reason, they are
called classes, with new orders as their major subdivisions.
Both are actually monophyletic groups; but whereas this
fact of common ancestry is the basis of our classification of
other products of the reptilian radiation, in their case the
decisive factor is advance to a new level of organization.
Aves and Mammalia are grade labels as well as ancestry labels.

Sometimes, indeed, our taxonomy designates only grades.
This would be so for teleost fish if Simpson's views are
confirmed. It was once so for the subkingdom Metazoa,
originally intended to cover all multicellular animals. Later,
however, when it became clear that sponges had evolved
independently to the multicellular level, the zealots for
ancestry % classification placed them in a new subkingdom,
the Parazoa, leaving Metazoa as a combined grade and
ancestry label for the rest of the multicellular animals.

I personally would like to see a new, evolutionary classi-
fication, which would combine the advance and ancestry
principles. We would then hzvegroups l of common ancestry —
classes, orders, and other familiar designations, and grades
of advance^ (advance sometimes independently achieved,
sometimes in common), for which new* designations would
be needecf'. Thus, Birds and Mammals would continue to
rank as two classes, but would be included in a single

1 CladtSy from the Greek for branches, is perhaps preferable, as more
precise.

90

EVOLUTION, CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL

grade, which might be called Homotherma, since temperature-
regulation is their diagnostic improvement. Other obvious
grade labels for Vertebrates would include terms already in
use, such as Gnathostomatdtiox forms with jaws, Tetrapoda for
those with walking limbs, and Amniota for those with a
orotective "private pond" for the embryo. I would hope that
Metazoa would be restored to its original use as a grade label,
and that Man would be placed in a new major* grade, which
might be called Psychozoa.

Of course, it is not the labels that are important, but the
principles and assumptions on which the necessary labelling
is done. I venture to suggest that the*adoption of a broadly
similar outlook would permit real progress in anthropology.
Its assumptions of principle are roughly as follows. Evolu-
tion still operates in man, but overwhelmingly as a cultural,
not a bidlogical process. Cultural (psycho-social) evolution
shows the same main features as biological evolution. From
one angle, it shows short-term improvement ("adaptation")
and long-term improvement ("advance") together with
some apparently non-adaptive accidental and consequential
results; from another, it shows divergence (resulting in
greater variety), advance (resulting in progressive improve-
ment) and limitation (resulting in stabilization or regression) ;
and from still another, more comprehensive angle, it reveals
a succession of dominant types, resulting in progress, as
ftianifested by a rise in the upper level of achievement and
an increased realization of possibilities. But finally, cultural
evolution differs importantly from biological in respect of
selection and mechanisms of change, of transmission of the
old and incorporation of the new, of the presence of diffusion
and a consequent tendency to convergence as against diverg-
ence, of the immensely increased importance of mind and
mentifacts, notably the accumulation and better organization
of knowledge, and in many other ways.

With such an outlook, the sterile controversies about
cultural evolution (Sterile because based on misconceptions)
would be resolved; anthropologists would be able to see
their subject in the conceptual framework of combined
divergence, stabilization, extinction, and advance; they
would refceh a truer and more satisfying picture of cultural

91

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

evolution than those provided by historians and sociologists
like Spengler, Sorokin, or Toynbee; and they would open
the door to a scientific theory of human progress, free from
wish-fulfilment « and over-optimism on the one hand, and
from captious relativism and over-pessimism on the other.
By envisaging the problem of acculturation in the world of
to-day as an inevitable accompaniment of the emergence of a
new dominart t cultural type, they could bring a new illumina-
tion to bear upon it; find by reminding politicians and ad-
ministrators of the value of variety-in-unity — variety of
•cultural expression within a unitary framework of knowledge,
ideas, and purpose, (hey could help to minimize the evil
effects of the process and maximize its desirable results.
Finally, by insisting on the overriding importance of know-
ledge and its organization in the form of ideas, assumptions,
and beliefs, they would ensure that anthropology would
make a vital contribution to the march of history. By clari-
fying the role men's ideas of destiny have played during past
cultural evolution, they would make it easier for man to
achieve his true destiny in the future.

92

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE:
IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE 1

Th. huxley played a leading part in the development
of anthropology. Indeed, the grrat Virchow, speaking
in England jn 1898, said that his work in this field would
alone be enough to secure his scientific immortality. *
His interest in ethnology (as the subject was then gener-
ally called) grew out of his interest in the general question of
evolution. Already before 1859, he had satisfied himself of
the falsity of Owen's statement that the brain of man con-
tained structures not found in the apes or any lower animal,
and had concluded that the physical differences between man
and higher apes were smaller in extent than those between
the higher apes and the lower monkeys. But with the publi-
cation of the Origin of Species evolution became a matter of
acute and embittered controversy, and the relationship of
man and apes its burning focus.

The discovery of the Neanderthal skull, and requests from
Lyell for anatomical help over his book on The Antiquity of
Man, led Huxley to take an interest in physical anthropology,
and Mans Place in Nature, published early in 1863, included
evidence from this field, as well as from that of comparative
anatomy. # s

This, his first book, was an important landmark in the
history of science : it gave an irrefutable demonstration that
man, physically speaking, must be considered as merely one
among animal # species, a primate mammal specialized in
peculiar ways. This was a necessary first step towards a truly
scientific anthropology, in which all attributes of human life,
social as well as physical, psychological as well as material,
are treated as natural phenomena to be studied by the
methods of science. It made one of the first breaches in the

# 1 The Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1950, delivered before the Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

93

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

barrier set up by theology and philosophy between man and
the rest of the universe.

Huxley continue4 his keen interest in physical anthro-
pology till the* early '70s. In afldition to various detailed
papers, he interested himself in a grandiose scheme for
establishing a collection of photographs of representatives*
of all the peoples and tribes in the British Empire, and wrote
an important pioneer paper on the geographical distribution
of human races or, ^s he wisely called them, "the chief
modifications of mankind".

r. If T. H. Huxley did not pay special attention to social
anthropology, this Ivas partly due to its less advanced
development and partly to his natural bias as a comparative
anatomist towards physical anthropology. But he was much
interested in it, as shown by his address to the Anthropo-
logical Section of the British Association in 1878. In this,
he refers to Herbert Spencer's work on sociology; to that
of Max Mliller and Tylor on the natural history of religions,
which he calls "one of the most interesting chapters of
anthropology"; and to Lane Fox's ethnographical museum,
which he describes as "one of the most extraordinary
exemplifications that I know of the ingenuity and, at the
same time, the stupidity of the human race".

However, his greatest contribution to anthropology was
the fact that he brought his remarkable mind to bear upon
it as a single subject, in relation to other subjects of scientific
study. He saw it, not as a set of separate specialized pro-
blems, but as part of science as a whole, and was able to help
materially in integrating ,it into the great scientific move-
ment of the mid-nineteenth century.

One of T. H. Huxley's outstanding qualities was his
encyclopaedism, humanist as well as science. He was not
merely interested in a vast range of subjects — comparative
anatomy and German literature, evolution and ethics, paint-
ing and physiology, embryology and anthropology, educa-
tion and bif>lical criticism — not only able to illuminate and
forward eJch and all of them separately but also to help to
relate them in broader constructions of thought and to distil
them in more potent syntheses. ■

Anthropologists know very well that no human culture or

94

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

society can flourish without the support of some general
framework of thought, even if the thought be largely tacit
and its synthesis incomplete. Accordingly I make no apology
for taking as my subject ouf present need for unifying inter-
pretation and constructive synthesis. "That need is even
•greater to-day than in my grandfather's time. This is due
partly to the increase of specialization, partly to the increase
in mere bulk of knowledge, and partly to the disruption of
the background unity still possessed by nineteenth-century
thought.

Specialization has led to the accumulation of vast quanti-
ties of new knowledge ; but also to the paradoxical result that
much of that knowledge has cut itself off from any central
common pool and from cross-fertilizing contacts with other
currents of thought. Some branches of science and learning
have shown tendencies towards isolationism and autarkic
self-sufficiency strangely similar to those shown by various
nation-states in their economic and cultural affairs. This has
had its counterpart in education, notably in the compart-
mentalization of subjects of study at our universities. Wher-
ever and however manifested, these tendencies act so as to
sterilize great volumes of knowledge and to impede the
growth of a common tradition and a common basis for
human action.

Next is the increase in the mere amount of factual know-
ledge available. This has been quite prodigious. We have
some idea of the quantitative changes in other fields. Thus,
the growth in area of Greater London since 1914 is about
the same as its growth between Roitian times and tlfat date:
demographers tell us, staggeringly enough, that the net
increase in the world's pgpulation since T. H. Huxley began
his professional career is roughly the same as the total it had
achieved in the whole span of human existence on earth up
to that time. However, no one, so far as I am aware, has
attempted to make a similar estimate for the increase in the
number of facts in the world during the same peilod. If they
were to do so, I anticipate that the result would be ftven more
staggering. Mountains of facts have been piled up on the
plains of human ignorance — facts economic and social, facts
historical #and physical, astronomical and archaeological,

95

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

geological and art-historical, agricultural, chemical, bio-
logical, geographical, psychological. The result is a glut of
raw material. Great piles of fact are lying around unutilized,
or utilized only in an occasional «or partial manner.

Of course, there has been a great increase also in inter-
pretative theories and principles in all the separate branches
of science and learning. But this has not always kept pace
with the increase of facts ; and, furthermore, there has been
scarcely any attempt at a synthesis of the specialized theories
of separate disciplines, in a general interpretation or even in
a common synoptic view. Our old bottles are bursting or
have already burst: *we need new containers for the potent
new vintages now brewing.

In some ways, the third factor in the present situation, the
loss of a common background of thought, is the gravest. In
my grandfather's day there was still some unity of approach.
Authoritarianism had been decisively defeated in the intel-
lectual battle. Its defeat left the field in the possession of a
broadly liberal philosophy, resting on an assumption that
the scientific method was universally applicable and science
intrinsically beneficent, on an essentially optimistic concep-
tion of human nature, on a belief in the necessary validity
of individual freedom as it appeared to nineteenth-century
liberalism, and on a half-unconscious faith in civilization and
its more or less inevitable progress.

To-day, that unity has disappeared. We have learnt by
experience the distortions of which civilized human beings
are capable, the depths to which our boasted human nature
can sin*. We have witnessed a huge setback to whatever
progress there may exist. Science has in some quarters come
to be looked on as an enemy. The scientific method itself
leads sometimes to uncertainty and apparent irrationality.
Psycho-analysis has often been misinterpreted to imply the
depreciation of reason. Wholly new theories of man in
society have emerged, like Fascism, Nazism, and Marxist
Communisffn, which seem irreconcilable with each other and
with any kind of Western liberalism. The very assumption
that unity is possible is itself in danger of disappearing.

I would go so far as to say that the lack of a common
frame of reference, the absence of any unifying set of con-

96

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

cepts and principles, is now, if not the world's major disease,
at least its most serious symptom. It is particularly obvious
and particularly serious in the Western world. We of the
West are confronted by a ,f very real dilemma. We see the
fragmentation of Western thought into'a series of conflicting
•and largely irreconcilable tendencies — Science, Roman
Catholicism, the Welfare State or the Fair Deal, Big Busi-
ness, the cult of the Common Man, and the rest — in place
of its synthesis into a harmonious picture and its condensa-
tion into a common point of view; ancf we contrast this with
the obvious *and powerful appeal of the coherent point of #
view provided by Communism in the East. But then we
recall that Marxist Communism is an authoritarian ortho-
doxy, yrhose enforcement has already led to many undesir-
able results — social, political and intellectual — and whose
continuance is likely to be as disastrous to itself as that of
any other enforced authoritarianism in the past.

And so we find ourselves in the apparent dilemma of
having to choose between an ineffectual chaos of thought on
the one hand and the suppression of freedom of thought on
the other.

But the position, grave though it be, is certainly not hope-
less. For one thing, civilization has survived equally grave
crises in the past, human reason has resolved contradictions
of equal magnitude. For another, the dilemma between
cKaos and authoritarianism is apparent only. It is possible
to have voluntary agreement, agreement by persuasion,
without any other enforcement except that of reality: the
highest freedom is to understand £nd voluntarily th accept
the compulsion of the facts. And the present situation is a
new one, in which new facts and new knowledge are avail-
able over new fields to an unprecedented extent, and could
be distilled to provide us with the truth that alone can set
us free.

There is no panacea for such a situation. But T do suggest
that, if we look at the position objectively, as a # problem in
applied anthropology, and scientifically in the ltght of all
the relevant knowledge and methods available, we can get
seme way towards an answer.

Note that I specify "in the light of all the relevant know-

d m '97

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

ledge available". For whatever the enemies of science may
say, they cannot gloss over the fact that it has produced a
steadily growing body of established knowledge, which we
neglect at our peril. It is no longer possible to secure belief
in a priori or mythological assumptions about the nature or
origin of man, any more than it is possible to do so about the
nature and origin of disease. Man is an organism, although
a very peculiar one, and his history is a continuation of bio-
logical evolution, although by new methods. We can in-
vestigate and describe the properties and potentialities of
evolving man as we do other natural phenomena, and can
empirically study the course of evolution, both biological
and human, as an integral process.

The conclusion is forced on us that the most important,
if not the most urgent, task of our times is the development
of a new set of integrative, directive, and transmissive mech-
anisms for human societies and for their continuity down the
generations. These must include systems in which the
community at large can share, of shared interpretation,
shared belief and faith, and shared activity. Such general
terms have different meanings to different people, but it will
I hope appear as I proceed in what sense I am using them.
Meanwhile, I will only say that among the minor but press-
ing needs of to-day is the semantic need for a satisfactory
and agreed terminology, both for scientific purposes and for
general use, in the field of — I was going to say sociology,
and then history, and then social psychology, and then
political science, but once more the terms are inadequate —
in the Whole field of human relations, including social
anthropology.

First of all, the phrase 'integrative (or unitive) mechanisms'
can often be used to cover mechanisms of transmission also.
This is not true on the biological level, where integrative
mechanisms, such as the nervous and endocrine systems, are
quite distinct from the transmissive mechanisms of the gene-
complex in 'the chromosomes. But on the human level, parts
of the integrative mechanism unite men in time as well as
in space, binding the generations together and providing the
continuity for all collective existence that is not focused
impossibly on the present alone.

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Any such mechanism must have its overall framework of
ideas, its ritual, and its morality of action, its emotional
driving force. I would use the word Religion for such a
system, since it is the onty word in common use which
includes these three connotations, but unfortunately its
fls^ge has become so restricted to; one particular type of
unitive system that it is useless as a general term. Alter-
natively, there is the word ideology. Quite apart from its ugly
associations with systems of ideas that ^ye know to be forced
and believe to be false, it has the defect of implying only
cognitive elements in the system, whereas an integrative
system, as an organ of society, must always involve emotion,
action, expression, and will, as well as (or in conjunction
with) rational thought. In point of fact, however, the systems
to which the term ideology is usually applied — Fascism,
National Socialism, and Communism — have all contained
other than cognitive elements, and I shall employ it, though
sometimes belief-system and sometimes interpretative system
will be more useful. But though terminology is important,
discussion of it here would be both tedious and useless. I
must hope that my terms will define themselves ambulando
as I proceed.

Let me point out at the outset that belief and faith, though
by their nature they include a non-rational element, need not
be either irrational or anti-rational, unscientific or anti-
scfentific. They can perfectly well be coherent with reason
and with scientifically established fact, and any belief-system
which is going to be of value in the world of to-day must be
thus coherent with reason and science, because rationality
and scientific knowledge are an important part of that world.
And this implies further that it must not be dogmatic : to be
coherent with science it must surrender the completeness of
its certitudes, and with that its own unchangeability. Big
words with capital letters, like the Absolute and the Eternal,
must be banished from its vocabulary.

This is only a heaify-handed way of saying, what ought to
be self-evident but is usually disregarded or even denied,
that an ideology or belief-system is conditioned by current
reality; that it should be congruent with the facts of nature
and with "established knowledge: and that it should be

• 99

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

flexible and capable of adaptive change and development.

At the present stage of social evolution, current reality
includes scientific ideas just as much as it includes political
structure or technological capacity. The ideology and belief-
system of peoples who could suppose that death was never
due to natural causes, who did not know the cause f of
thunder, and were ignorant why the sun "rises" and "sets",
were (and indeed in some cases still are!) very different from
our own.

Sometimes scientific discovery has had an obvious and
central effect on ideology. The facts of astronomy, for in-
stance, have not merely made it impossible to believe certain
aspects of theology, but have brought a feeling of human
insignificance which has had various effects on general out-
look — of late, after the earlier misplaced reverence for
Natural Law and the assumption that it was the edict of a
divine law-giver, either pessimism, or a sense of being alien
to the universe as a whole, or, in reaction against that, an
intellectual and spiritual isolationism, or the existentialist's
over-insistence on the individual human self.

I believe that, by the time its implications have been
properly grasped, the discovery of evolution is destined to
have a more revolutionary effect upon ideology than any
other scientific discovery yet achieved. The effect will also
be a less depressing, and more constructive one than that of
astronomical discovery. For evolution bridges the gaps be-
tween man and animal, between mental and material, and
between the organic and the inorganic. Evolution shatters
the presence of human "isolationism and sets man squarely
in his relation — and a very important relation — with the
cosmos. It is the most powerfully, integrative of concepts,
forcibly and inevitably uniting nebulae and human emotions,
life and its environment, religion and material nature, all into
a single whole. The facts of evolution, once clearly perceived,
indicate the position we men should take up and the function
we are called on to perform in the universe. "Stand there,"
they say, "'and do thus and thus." If we neglect to do as
they order, we not only do so at our peril but are guilty
of a dereliction of our cosmic duty. «
I have no space here to enter on any detailediexposition

IOO

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

of the facts of evolution. What seems relevant to my present
purpose can be condensed into a few sentences, but sentences
pregnant with implications.

First of all, then, reality-*— in the sense of«the cosmos of
which we form a part in so far as we have knowledge of it —
te^lity is a process, and that process is evolution. Biological
evolution, the development of different forms of animal and
plant life on this planet, is one small but important aspect of
this universal process. The process of §volution as we know
it to-day exists on three distinct levels — the inorganic or
cosmic, the biological or organic, and the human or psycho- ,
social. •

Cosmic evolution means the process of change in the stars
and nebulae, in the inorganic constituents of the cosmos, in
so far as they are not caught up in the effects of the other
phases of evolution. These constitute the enormous bulk of
the whole ; but their changes are slow almost beyond imagina-
tion, and the complexity of organization arrived at is almost
infinitely below that produced by organic evolution in any
familiar animal.

Here and there in this dragging and apparently meaning-
less drama of lifeless matter, spots appear in which more
complicated organizations of matter become possible, some-
times indeed organizations capable of self-copying and
therefore alive. The astronomers tell us that we may expect
ttfet at least a few hundreds of these theatres of life have
arisen in our own galaxy: but we have knowledge only about
one — our own earth.

Living matter does not always copy itself exactly. From
the basic fact of self-copying and the secondary fact of in-
accurate copying or muiation, natural selection automatic-
ally follows; anc^ natural selection is a far more rapid agency
of change than anything available on the inorganic level. As
a result of its operation during two thousand million years or
so, it has in fact produced the organizations we call higher
animals, which would, if they were not so familTar, stagger
us by the almost impossible complexity and delicaCy of their
construction. A dog would be a miracle if it were not just
oflr familiar Prince or Toby.

More extraordinary still, it has produced mental as well

• IOI

NEW BOTTLJiS FOR NEW WINE

as physical organization. From the study of bacteria or
amoebae, jellyfish or green plants, we would have no right to
conclude that they possessed mental attributes: but with an
ape or a cat or a bird we cannotHavoid this conclusion. Their
minds are certainly very different from ours, but minds
they certainly possess. % '

Finally, it is possible to detect a trend in biological evolu-
tion which* deserves to be called progress. Evolutionary
progress can be defined as improvement of vital organiza-
tion permitting increase in control over the environment and
in independence of changes in the environment, together
with the capacity tor continue evolution further in the same
general progressive direction. It also involves an increase in
internal harmony and individuation — the degree to which
living matter is organized into well-marked and well-
integrated individuals — an increase in range of knowledge
(or, more accurately, of the environmental effects which life
can detect), and finally an increase in mind, an intensification
of the mental properties of organisms. Biological progress
would have occurred, as an objective fact, even if man had
never existed.

Eventually the stream of evolutionary progress passed a
second critical point, and a new level of evolution was
attained. In one out of the million or so animal species, mind
developed to a stage at which it gave its possessor the power
for true speech and conceptual thought. The result was m£n.
With this, a new method of evolutionary change was intro-
duced — cumulative change in the behaviour and achieve-
ments of a social group by mentally transmitted tradition,
instead of change in the potentialities of individuals by
physically transmitted systems of nucleoproteins. And this
again immensely speeded up the rate of .the evolutionary
process.

There is complete continuity between the three phases or
levels, but yet a critical point between each one and the next,
after which the process alters in character.

Evolutton on the human level, although it has been oper-
ating for the barest fraction of geological time, has already
produced very extraordinary new results, impossible even' to
conceive of on the biological level — for exampke, Dante's

102 •

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Divina Commedia, guided missiles, Picasso's Guernica^ Ein-
stein's theory of relativity, ritual cannibalism, the Parthenon,
the Roman Catholic Church, the films of the Marx Brothers,
modern textile mills, BelseA, and the mystical experiences of
Buddhist saints. Most extraordinary* in principle, it has
•generated values. No one can prove that values play a part
in the process of biological evolution, but no one can deny
that they do so in human affairs. In lower organisms, the
only ultimate criterion is survival: but in man some experi-
ences and actions, some objects and ideas, are valued for
their own sake. m

The ideologically most important fact about evolution is
that the human species is now the spearhead of the evolu-
tionary process on earth, the only portion of the stuff of
which our planet is made which is capable of further progress.
Men are the sole trustees, agents, representatives, embodi-
ments, or instruments — each word has its merits and de-
merits — of the only process of progressive evolution with
which we have any direct concern.

Man, in fact, is a microcosm — but in a somewhat differ-
ent sense from that of earlier centuries. He is, as it were, a
distillation of the universe at large, the macrocosm. The
picture that he constructs of the universe, including of
course himself, however distorted and full of gaps it may
be, is the only representation that exists on this earth of the
rfiacrocosm as a unit. And the novelties that he produces in
history, however crude and misdirected some of them have
been, involve the only large-scale advance of the evolutionary
process still operating on our planet. There is thtis a new
categorical imperative that has taken form and voice from
the facts of post-Darwinian science and humane studies —
that man's desyny, his duty and privilege in one, is to con-
tinue in his own person the advance of the cosmic process
of evolution.

There is mystery in this: who can prophesy the possi-
bilities of man's future achievement when we Arc only now
beginning to understand his present properties and those of
his natural environment? There is morality: if the highest
good is not quantitative but qualitative, then population-
increase at some point becomes a threat, and any opposition

103

NhW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

of principle to birth-control becomes immoral; if cumulative
knowledge is the necessary foundation for success in coping
with the problems of life and its improvement, then dogma
is a threat, and any claim to exclusive possession of the truth
or to suppression of free enquiry is immoral ; if our destiny
is to continue this mystery-play of cosmic change down t;he*
millennia, then improvident exploitation of resources is
immoral; and so on.

There are faith and hope — reasoned faith and tempered
hope, but none the less valuable for that. There is love, for
, without love of one kind or another — love of beauty, love of
holiness, love of life and its possibilities, love of other people,
love of knowledge — we never achieve anything constructive.
Above all, there is participation — the sense that we are
participants with the whole cosmos in its and our unbeliev-
able adventure, so much stranger than anything that wc
could imagine out of our own heads.

Some of you may have been thinking that, instead of
delivering a scientific address, I have been indulging in a
flight of fancy. It is a flight, but not of mere fancy. It is my
small personal attempt to share in the flight of the mind into
new realms of our cosmic environment. We have evolved
wings for such flights, in the shape of the disciplined scien-
tific imagination. Support for those wings is provided by
knowledge created by human science and learning: so far ks
this supporting atmosphere extends, so far can our wings
take us in our explorations.

However, it is time that I returned nearer home, to ask
what role ideologies and integrative belief-systems have
actually played in different types of human society, and, at
one further remove, what role science and ,new knowledge
have played in producing and altering the ideologies and
integrative systems themselves. Only so can we begin even
to consider the problem of harnessing our new knowledge
of evolution, of domesticating it, as it Were, and making it
perform a social function.

First of all, then, the biologist naturally sees the course
of human evolution as the differentiation and development
of portions of the world-stuff organized as groups — not in

104

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

the form of the interbreeding units or species of pre-human
evolution [but of psycho-social groups — "inter-thinking
units", in the arresting phrase of G. G. Simpson the Ameri-
can palaeontologist, or "hifman collectives" »s the Marxists
often term them. Just as the main fnethod of biological
► evolution is the adjustment, by means of natural selection,
of a mechanism of biological heredity capable of reproducing
itself and any viable changes that may take placp in it, so the
main method of human evolution is the adjustment, by
means of psycho-social selection, of a fnechanism of cultural
heredity, involving the cumulative transmission of tradition.

The mechanism of biological heredity can be analysed in"
purely material terms; so can most of the mechanisms of
natural selection, though in higher animals non-material
(psychological) properties may enter in, as in the evolution
of colours and patterns with an adaptive function. But the
mechanism of social and cultural heredity cannot be so
analysed. What is transmitted always has a mental and
psychological component, actual or potential. Even where
what is socially transmitted appears at first sight to be purely
material, there is a psychological component. With money,
for instance, there has to be understanding of the use of
tokens for exchange, there has to be agreement as to the use
of a particular currency: otherwise we could not transmit it.

Sometimes the psychological function subserved by the
transmission of an object or event is quite different from that
which it originally had. The value to us of a record of, say,
a boy going to school in Sumeria 4000 years ago is in large
measure that of giving us a sense of the continuity ©f human
history and the permanent similarities of human nature —
humani nil a me ahenum puto, such a document reminds us.
A ritual object, such as" a bull-roarer, may have no aesthetic
value, and ma^ have entirely lost the operative magical
significance to which it owed its original function : yet it may
have the psychological function of helping us in the com-
prehension of our Ijuman past.

Often, however, what is transmitted is intended to con-
tinue exerting the same psychological function — a flag, for
instance, a theological system, a socialj°itual, an idea. I say
intended\ 9 iov the ritual may become fossilized, the idea may

d ! 105

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

become irrelevant in new conditions, the theological system
may become distorted.

But the mental components are always there. What is
more, they cannot be separated from the material com-
ponents. A man is riot a mind plus a body, but a unitary
conscious organism, a mind-body. So the organic coherence*
and continuity of a society or collective is assured by tfie
existence of something which is transmitted : and that some-
thing always involves both mind and matter. Sometimes, as
with an idea, the mental aspect is the dominant one; but
# even there it cannot be transmitted except by means of
material sound-waves or visible marks on paper. In other
cases, what is transmitted is determined by mind, or shaped
by it, or at least conditioned by it. It is only through psycho-
logical participation of one sort or another that individual
human lives are tied together through space and time. Mind
builds the boat in which the social unit floats through time,
and it is only by utilizing the psychological components of
transmission that the social unit can acquire any organic
unity.

Nor can it be said that either component of social reality
is subordinate or secondary to the other. The idealist and the
theologian maintain that spirit has the primacy. This led
in the past to various errors and unfortunate results. To-day,
however, in this age of physical science and dialectical
materialism, it is the opposite view which is dangerous. The
net effect of Marxism, for instance, whatever the subtleties
of its philosophers, is to produce the notion that all which
really cofants is material' conditions and social machinery,
and that emotions and ideologies, sciences and arts, however
necessary to society, are automatic or epiphenomenal
secondary products.

The modern triumphs of physical science f have led to too
much importance being attached to science in general as
against other human activities. Furthermore, science has
tended to become equated with physics and chemistry,
experiment and quantitative measurement, so that quality
and value, not being amenable to this type of treatment,
have come to be neglected ; our thinking has been split into
the so-called scientific or quantitative, and the non-scientific

1 06

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

or qualitative. Psychology itself has tried to achieve scientific
respectability by quantifying itself, with the result that much
of mind eludes its attention.

While it is obvious that^nany ideas # arc oftly rationaliza-
tions, that many beliefs are secondary to material and social
conditions and have been generated by them, yet sometimes
it is impossible to give either aspect the primacy; and in still
other cases the existence of beliefs, however generated, has
a decisive influence on material and social events — the
mental conditions or even determines the form of the
material.

An obvious example is the belief of tHe Aztecs that human
sacrifice was necessary to placate the sun-god and to ensure
that the sun continued to rise each day. This led to the
ceremonial slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human
beings, thus making constant warfare necessary in order to
provide the victims; and so, by alienating the neighbouring
peoples, became one of the prime causes of the Aztecs' defeat
by the Spaniards.

Or again, the Egyptians' belief that continued existence in
the after-life was only possible through the regular provision
of food and other offerings resulted in the establishment and
endowment of a mortuary priesthood, and so eventually led
to a very large area of the country's land and resources
coming into the hands of the priests and escaping from the
more efficient methods of exploitation adopted by the kings.
Payment for masses for the souls of the dead had a not dis-
similar effect in medieval Christendom, and every school-
boy knows what were the material results of men^s ideas
about indulgences.

Another example of the economic result of a belief is seen
in India, where* the entire agricultural economy has been
affected in a deplorable manner by belief in the sanctity of
cows.

Belief in the spiritual efficacy of pilgrimages to sacred
spots and holy placdfe has produced very extensive material
effects. Canterbury and Compostella spring to mind, Mecca
and Jerusalem, Benares and Qalat Seman round the pillar
of the Stylite; and anyone who visited Italy in Holy Year
can testifyno the resultant overcrowding.

107

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The only possible conclusions from the facts of evolution
are that mental and psychological events are also material
events, but experienced from the inside instead of studied
from the outsiUe; th^t the men&l properties of life — know-
ing, feeling, willing — on the whole make for biological
success, since they have been intensified during evolutiqn ;
and that in higher animals and especially in man, methods
have been developed for extending the range and operative
value of mind beyond the confines of the individual, through
the establishment of causal chains from mind to mind, from
mental event to mental event, by means of various material
expressions or symb*ols. Gestures, call-notes and cries, and
facial expressions are the primitive means of mental inter-
communication : but in human society, thanks to new pro-
perties of our minds, symbols, both arbitrary and other-
wise, and finally language and works of art, can serve as
vehicle between mind and mind, so that forms of mind as
well as forms of matter become capable of reproducing and
transmitting themselves.

We could theoretically conceive the existence of brains as
automatic, as efficient, and as devoid of mental experience
as a modern calculating machine. However, for reasons
beyond our comprehension, the biological utility of brains of
a high order of complexity seems to depend on their possess-
ing mental as well as material properties — the capacity for
perception, for instance, as well as for the physical trans-
mission and registration of sensory symbols, for emotion as
well as for the setting of our organic machinery in prepara-
tion for this or that type of action. If this were not so, we can
be certain that mental funttions would not have been evolved,
for natural selection is the sole or prime agency of biological
evolution, and it is incapable of producing € ,anything except
on the basis of its biological utility.

Once a new piece of biological machinery has been
evolved, however, it often proves to have various secondary
implications or potentialities which hatfe nothing to do with
its primary biological utility— correlates or consequences as
opposed to original (and originating) properties. This is
particularly true of mind. Once the faculty of conceptual
thought and therefore ofabstraction had been evtflved, logic

108 •

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

and mathematics and science were there inpotentia^ however
much effort was needed for each step towards their actual-
ization ; and once what I may call the synoptic faculty had
been developed, the unitive* faculty by yvhich* present sensa-
tions, perceptions, emotions, memories, images, deductions,
ftigntal constructions, and much else can all be brought
together in a single mental experience or act of conscious-
ness, almost infinite creative possibilities lay open — in
comprehension, art, imagination, and jnorality.

With this^ new and illuminating pictures of the world-
process become apparent to us. Note that I say pictures : not
interpretations, still less explanations- —but pictures, which
reveal in a flash something which had not previously been
apparent. Biological evolution is seen as a manifestation of
the almost infinitely improbable and varied potentialities of
self-reproducing world-stuff. Man's evolution, including
human history, is seen as a manifestation of the potentialities
of mind once it too had become self-reproducing through
cumulative tradition. We have no right to say, with some
philosophers and many theologians, that human history is
either produced or directed by some external mind or
absolute spirit: but we cannot avoid saying that it is> in one
very significant aspect, mind or spirit. This does not imply
an idealist position, but a genuinely monistic one, a unitary
naturalism. Mind and matter are, in human affairs as in
h&man bodies, always united as two aspects or faces of a
single reality.

In the sphere of human mind, as in that of animjl body,
much of the variety is improbable and fantastic in the
extreme; and again, among the variety the significant fact
stands out that with the passage of time new levels of
achievement are attained, new and higher potentialities
actualized. But there is only one side of the picture. The
realization of mind's possibilities takes place only against
immense resistance. There is the inertia and perversity of
lifeless matter to brf taken into account, since only in and
through matter can mind realize itself. There is the un-
■ conscious but effective hostility of other living species,
n&tably pests and agents of disease. There is the biological
foundation of mind, the self-reproducing matter of our

• 109

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

bodies, with its own momentum of demands for food, and of
over-production of population until quantity acts as a brake
on quality. There is the inertia of social institutions which
have developed in relation to oi*e phase of human develop-
ment but become set and crystallized so as to resist the next
onward impulsion. And there is the frustration and tfre
waste engendered by conflict — conflict not only between
individuals and groups, but within mind itself, both within
individual minds, an4 also within the common pool of mind
and its products belonging to the evolving society.

i

But it is time to rdcurn to my main theme — the need for a
new belief-system or ideology. Many people will say that any
deliberate attempt to create a belief-system is unnatural and
doomed to failure; such things cannot be turned out artifici-
ally but must have a natural growth. I do not think that this
is necessarily true. After all, the present epoch differs from
all previous periods in possessing a far more extensive and
detailed knowledge about the universe in general and about
human societies in particular — though this knowledge must
be synthesized and processed before it can serve as basis for
a new belief-system. For this, new techniques of teamwork
and group research and new forms of co-operation between
specialisms will be required, as well as new types of educa-
tional curriculum and new techniques of teaching. In so far
as an effective new belief-system must have a religiolis
aspect, it will doubtless need to wait for the appearance of a
prophet who can cast it into compelling form and shake the
world with it.

Any new ideology will ^change and grow — indeed, if it is
to be based on science, it must retain that combination of
flexibility with assurance that is one of the ^all-marks of the
scientific method. But that does not in any way prevent the
main outlines of its structure from being deliberately
synthesized, as any piece of apparatus can be synthesized
provided tftat we have enough scientific and technological
knowledge.

In setting about such a task, we need the help of science
in three main ways. First, we need to explore the psycho-
logical foundations of ideologies and belief-systems : what

no

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

psychological needs they meet, what compulsions they
suffer, by what inner machinery they are moulded and their
development is guided — in other words, their genetics, their
embryology, and their developmental physieflogy.

Then we need a survey of the structure and functions of
bglief-systems in as many different societies as possible —
their comparative physiology, their comparative anatomy:
what they do and what they consist of. Next we must supple-
ment this comparative study with a historical and relational
one, seeking to discover the way in which ideologies and
belief-systems change with changes in economic, social,
and political structure, and in know^dge, skills, and crea-
tive expression — their phylogeny and evolutionary history.
Further, we need a survey of those elements in our present
world and our knowledge about it, with which any new
belief-system should be consonant — the social, intellectual,
and factual environment to which it must be adapted. And
finally we (or our descendants) will have to have a try at the
business of synthesis itself, the actual construction of a
belief-system, or at any rate a working model of a belief-
system.

The first thing that strikes an outsider confronted with an
anthropological question of this sort is the astonishing variety
of the social mechanisms which have in point of fact some
such unitive or integrative function, even when we omit all
tliose in which the ideological component is weak or negli-
gible — accepted techniques and customs of life which have no
particular emotional or intellectual charge associated with
them, but are just passed on frorfl one generation* and ac-
cepted by the next. The variety of belief-systems is indeed
bewildering, especially their functional roles. Thus a theistic
belief may mejyi belief in divine immanence, possession or
transcendence, in polytheism or monotheism, in local and
concretely personified divinities or in a remote and universal
Absolute. The fact of death is ascribed by one people to
professional witchcraft, by another to routines <Sf sorcery by
non-professionals, by yet others to a god or gods, to natural
causes, to ancestral spirits, to Fate, to devils or demons, or
to human sin. Again, the universal problem of "wrong"
thoughts#and actions, and of relief from their burden, is met

1 1 1

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

in different societies by all kinds of assumptions and beliefs,
many of them mutually contradictory, concerning sin, guilt,
shame, and conscience, and concerning salvation, asceti-
cism, non-atta(?hmenJt, sacrifice, *an after-life, mystical self-
transcendence, and purgation.

How can all these be truly functional or adaptive? Andfif
adaptive, how can any be truer than any other? Essentially
the same problem confronts the biologist, faced with the
equally astonishing variety of animal types. How can such
different types of organizations as those of a tortoise and a
,wasp both be adaptive and useful to their possessors? And
still more difficult, h6w can we say that a wasp is "higher"
than a worm, or a man "higher" than either, or even than
an amoeba, when all manage to exist and survive?

In another essay in this volume I have dealt with the bio-
logical problem of evolutionary progress, and its indubitable
existence in spite of universal adaptation. As regards belief-
systems, I would make the following points. Adaptation,
whether in anthropology or biology, is not anything absolute ;
it merely connotes a relation to a particular environment,
and one which permits survival. The environment to which
belief-systems are related is not just "nature" (which of
course includes man's own nature), but man's knowledge
about nature. When that knowledge is primitive and crude,
his ideas and beliefs cannot be closely related to the true facts,
and all kinds of rationalizations and fantasies can and db
play a part, as well as various primitive assumptions (such as
magic), which later knowledge forces him to reject.

Thus*' the essential relation to be investigated is that
between belief-systems arid the advance of knowledge. A
tendency to the increase in quantity and coherence of estab-
lished knowledge is the most obvious and pf rhaps the most
important among the general trends of human evolution.

Meanwhile, some system of beliefs is necessary. Every
human individual and every human society is faced with
three oversftadowing questions: What afn I, or what is man?
What is the world in which I find myself, or what is the
environment which man inhabits? And what is my relation
to that world, or what is man's destiny? Men cannot direct
the course of their life until they have taken up an attitude

112

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

to life; they can only do that by giving some sort of answer
to these three great questions; and their belief-systems
embody that answer.

Beliefs, in their origin and for muc£ of tHeir history, are
inextricably entangled with ritual, since, as has been stressed
•by many workers and has been generalized in illuminating
fashion by Susanne Langer in her book Philosophy in a New
Key> ideas, beliefs, myths, rituals, and forms of art are all
expressions of man's basic symbol-making faculty. Rituals
are always in some measure acted beliefs, beliefs always in
some measure subjectivized rituals.

The most obvious integrative practices or ideas are those
whose function it is to emphasize the distinctiveness which
is almost always rationalized into a feeling of superiority to
other groups : thus the Greeks assumed their cultural superi-
ority to all other peoples, and emphasized this by the use of
the word barbarian for non-Greeks. Many tabus, whatever
their origin, come to include this as a later function. Pride
in one's own local or special gods is another such mechan-
ism. The culmination is the transference of sacredness to the
group itself. This is what the ancient Hebrews did in pro-
claiming themselves the Chosen People, what the Nazis did
with their false racialism, and what the U.S.S.R. are now
doing in their insistence on what they claim as the unique
achievements of Socialist Man.

• In the development of a new ideology for the One World
of the future, the world's oneness will constitute a real
difficulty, for such ideas tend to emphasize distinctiveness
as against others and readily spill: over into hostifity. The
solution would appear to lie in emphasizing the uniqueness
of man, his dictinctiveness in having the future of evolution
entrusted to hi§ charge.

Another unitive function is that of celebration. The dance
after a successful hunt; the firing of cannon to celebrate a
successful battle; the celebration of solemn anniversaries, as
of Armistice Day, of the Fourth of July in the LP.S.A., of the
Fourteenth of July in France, though they celebrate some
particular event, exert a general integrative function. Or the
cfelebration may be of some natural recurrence. The obvious
examples«here concern the turning-points of the agricultural

ii3

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

year — spring, fertility, the summer solstice, harvest, the
passing of winter's grip, and so on. These, of course, were
originally magico-religious in nature: but they certainly
exerted most powerful unitive Sanctions as well — we need
only think of the Adonis cult of Byblos and Afqa, bringing
thousands of scattered people together to celebrate thgif
common destiny as utilizers of the great discovery of agri-
culture (besides uniting them in a common consciousness of
the mysteries of their own existence) ; the rites of Osiris in
Egypt; May Day celebrations in all their transformations,
# down to their modern function of celebrating the solidarity
of Labour; Christmastide festivities (with their switch of
emphasis towards New Year celebration in countries like
Scotland).

Then there are the celebrations of stages in man's journey
from the womb to the grave — name-giving, rites de passage
and initiations, graduation, confirmation, marriage, and the
rituals of death. While many of these appear at first sight to
have only individual or restricted relevance, they all actually
perform important integrative functions. Initiation cere-
monies at puberty not only unite an age-group, but impress
on the initiates their new membership of the group of young
adults of the same sex, their unity of participation in its privi-
leges and duties. Funeral rites unite the participants in a sense
of common fate as well as of the continuity of the generations.

Once men come to be concerned with the realization 6f
new possibilities of experience and of personal development,
rather than the simple passage from one natural stage of life
to the rifext, new types of ritual or celebration are required.
These may be concerned with promotions in hierarchies of
rank, or with degrees of learning .or steps of progressive
initiation into sacred mysteries. The society of the future
will need to devise new ways for coping with the variety of
such situations.

Ancestor-worship gives integration through continuity,
as well as Helping to emphasize the distinctiveness of the
group. The glorification of national history subserves a
similar function in societies which have a history, while
myths of origin and legends of founding heroes played
similar role in earlier societies.

114

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

There are rituals which cement the social relationships of
individuals or groups — the exchange of gifts, of ceremonial
feasts, of ceremonial visits. The hypertrophied role which
such exchanges play in Polynesian life i£ well-known. Some-
times a precise integration is arrived at, as in the Kavirondo
B^ntu of East Africa, where Wagner points out that cere-
monial visits are made to "precisely those persons to whom
a man can turn for economic support, for help in a quarrel or
dispute, for a share in garden land, or on whose goodwill he
depends to conduct his marriage successfully". The visiting
cards and other formalities of social intercourse in recent
Western European "Society" played »a somewhat similar*
role.

Men may be united through trouble or disaster. Thus
the ceremonies of the northern Maya, in throwing sacrifices
(including human victims dedicated by the community, as
well as individual offerings) into the cliff-bound waters of
the Cenote at Chichen Itza certainly gave them a sense of
unity in face of drought or famine or war.

The list becomes too long for more than bare enumera-
tion. Participation in a ritual meal, that widespread practice
which is sublimated in Holy Communion; recurrent acts of
common worship, prayer or praise; sacred mysteries as at
Eleusis; ritual dramas, seen at their highest pitch in fifth-
century Athens ; pilgrimages ; the tribal gatherings of Aus-
tralian aborigines; festivals of sport like the Hellenic Games,
where potentially hostile political groups were united in a
common rivalry — these and much else exert some kind of
socially integrative function. * •

Even where religion is esoteric or restricted, and where,
as in ancient Egypt, its, main celebrations take place inside
enormous temples from which ordinary people are excluded,
it still can exert an integrative function. The people conceive
the temple as a sort of power-house for the generation or
manipulation of forces necessary for the safety of the com-
munity, and the king and priests as the requisite specialists.

This introduces us to the notion of vicarious participation,
which in one form or another plays an important part in
many ideologies, culminating in the central Christian idea
of vicarious sacrifice and suffering. This idea, of the vicarious

"5

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

performance of tasks or bearing of burdens by different
sections of the community, is basic to any developed social
organization, as well as providing an outlet for some of the
deeper elements in Human nature, and any new ideology will
need to pay careful attention to it.

Nor must we forget the function of belief-systems # irt
relation to guilt and sin. This chiefly concerns individuals
and their separate "salvation" or personal development: but
it has its integrative aspects too. Such rituals and beliefs can
unite men in a common consciousness of evil and error. All
( humanity is saddled with a burden of guilt, conscious or
unconscious (Freud* has, of course, shown the way to an
explanation of how this comes to be so) ; all humanity has
capacities for evil and for error as well as for good and truth,
and everyone is guilty of sins and mistakes. Accordingly,
men can be united by the common urgency of freeing them-
selves from these burdens. Only so will they be able to
devote themselves to the more positive and more essential
task of fuller living, which any comprehensive ideology
must inculcate.

Crude ideas on this subject can have most unfortunate
effects on integrative ideologies. If men neglect the basic
fact of the evil in human nature (including the intellectual
evils of stupidity and error, and the spiritual evil of self-
righteousness) and then proceed to ascribe the obvious evils
of existence entirely to social conditions, the resultant
ideology is likely to be a Utopian millenarism, in which the
present reality is sacrificed to an imaginary future. This was
true of Some versions of the Victorian belief in progress, and
characterises communist and all revolutionary ideologies.

Such "pie-in-the-sky" ideologies bring us to the escape
and compensatory functions of belief-systeips. To all people
at some time, and to many people much of the time, the
world is an unpleasant or even horrible place, and life a trial
or even a misery. All normal people at some time are
oppressed by a sense of their own inferiority or, at least,
inadequacy. Little wonder that many ideologies, religious
and otherwise, are concerned with providing escapes from
the unpleasant reality, compensations for the paralysing
feeling of insufficiency. The escape may be via an«imaginary

116

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

millennium, or may have a more restricted goal (such as the
last generation's idea of a War to end War), or may be into
a Promised Land, or into bliss in a Next World. Sometimes
escape is sought from the burden of sel^ its inadequacy and
its limitations — whether through the orgiastic rituals of
tojne ancient religions, through asceticism, through medita-
tion, through a sense of union with the divine, or through an
agreeable sense of certitude in one's own Tightness or
salvation.

When an ideology of escape becomes escapism, it is
clearly bad. It was this compensatory and escapist aspect of
Christianity that Marx had in mind when he made the un-
justified generalization that religion is the opium of the
people. We must, however, note that escape is not neces-
sarily a wrong or cowardly aim. All existence is always to
some degree in some prison or other, and it is good and right
to escape into greater freedom. Self-transcendence, the
desire for social progress, practical idealism, hope itself, are
all forms of escape, and can be good and right if they do not
escape from external reality altogether into celestial pies and
wishful imaginings, or from the internal reality of human
imperfection into self-righteousness (itself a grave form of
sin) and impossible certitude (itself a form of wishful
thinking).

Ideologies and belief-systems may also have as one of
their functions the preservation of the power and interests
of the ruling class or group. But to assert, as does dialectical
materialism, that this is the sole function of all belief-systems
(or even the main function of mostjf, is itself a piece bf ideo-
logical dogma, and demonstrably far from the whole truth.

Religions are, of course, among the most potent integra-
tive mechanising known — the very word signifies that they
bind men in the bonds of common purposes. To discuss
their integrative functions would take a book. Here I can
only touch on a few relevant points. First, religions can
divide as well as unite, so that a study of what gives them
divisive properties is very important for learning what to
avoid in building up an ideology which could be integrative
far humanity as a whole. One of the most potent divisive
factors is the claim to complete or absolute truth, whether of

• "7

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

revelation, dogma, righteousness, or anything else. Systems
based on any such absolute inevitably come up against new
facts and new discoveries which are in opposition to their
pretensions. The on{ty method tken open is to assert that the
new ideas are also absolute, in the opposed sense of being
absolutely wrong; and this at once creates division, and shytS
the door on synthesis and development. A claim to absolute
truth may be dressed up to appear as a claim to universality:
but in point of fact it is always particular and not general,
and can never become truly universal. Le mieux c y est Vennemi
du bieri) and a pretended absolute is the enemy of true
universality and of a'real increase in truth.

Religions can also be divisive in denying the unity of
human nature, and attempting to project evil and guilt out
of the individual and on to somebody or something else —
usually a class or a foreign nation. Instead of treating the
conflict in the soul as a natural phenomenon, which may be
only transitory, since it is capable of being reconciled in the
integration of personal development, the conflict is stabilized,
made more permanent, and projected as an inter-group divi-
sion into the outer world, where it then is capable of
hindering human integration.

There is still a more subtle way in which religions can be
divisive. They can divide reality itself. This they do when-
ever they insist on the existence of the supernatural. In its
earliest stages, when religion perhaps scarcely deserved tftc
name, since it consisted largely of magic, it was naturalistic,
though its naturalism was false or erroneous, for it was based
on the belief that magic was part of the nature of things.
Sacredness, whether good or evil, Mana, numinous qualities,
magical potency, good and bad witchcraft — they were sup-
posed to inhere in natural objects or people or rituals or
forms of words, and were not regarded as emanating from
another realm.

Personification is probably rather less primitive than
magic; in any case, its share in determining the character of
human belief-systems seems to have increased during early
prehistory. Thus, religious and magic forces came increas-
ingly to be personified as spirits or gods, and this increasing
tendency to personification was accompanied hy an in-

118 •

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

creasingly sharp division of religion into two disparate
realms, of natural and supernatural. But the division was
often far from complete. The gods of classical Greece, how-
ever supernatural in somi respects, Jhad partly material
natures and lived largely in the natural world. Divinity then
w^s not, as so often now, regarded as an attribute only of
supernatural beings. It was quite natural to the ancient
Romans to deify their emperors and call them Divus\ for
their divinity merely meant that some of the sacredness
inherent in the natural order of things was, as it were, dis-
tilled and concentrated in their persons, as holders of their
sacred office. In this the Romans were continuing the tradi-
tion of the priest-king, which culminated in the Egyptian
empire, and of which Shakespeare's "divinity that doth
hedge a king" is the latter-day dilution. The idea that
divinity could accrue to a man as son or descendant of a god
was also current in the ancient world, as witness all the
legends of demi-gods. On tombstones from Asia Minor in
the century around the beginning of the Christian era, men
of various religions are often described as "Son of God,
Saviour". And, of course, Christian theology combines this
concept of divinity by sonship with that of divinity by
incarnation: the divine, banished to the supernatural realm
by a process of personification pushed to a too logical con-
clusion, returns to dwell in a natural human body. All
concepts of divine immanence, possession, and incarnation
are attempts to bridge this unnatural division between
natural and supernatural.

The modern naturalistic approach acknowledges # the ex-
istence of the quality of sacredness or holiness among other
realities, accepts the fac.t that men can reach transcendent
heights of personality or experience, and reminds us that
ideals and abstractions are facts of nature, just as much
products of the cosmic process as trees or stones or human
beings; and in so doing makes it possible to repair the split
in reality and to create a truly unitary and unitive ideology.

The relation between such things as ritual and ideology
may be obscure and implicit, as among many primitive
peoples, or obvious and explicit, as in Christianity with its
developed, theology, but the ideological framework always

.119

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

has an important power of determining the rest. In fact, once
man has learnt to think deliberately, the core of any socially
integrative mechanism is bound to be ideological, centering
round man's idea ofjthe cosmo^and of his own destiny. It
is this which will give such mechanisms their set and their
effectiveness, and will qualify the associated rituals, doctrinal
formulations and the rest.

Man's view of his destiny inevitably changes with the
progressive illumination revealed by new knowledge. The
latest revelation — scarce dreamt of and never substantiated
in earlier ages — is that of evolutionary science. In its light,
as I have set forth eaflier, man is enabled and, indeed, forced
to view his destiny as the trustee, spearhead, or effective
agent of any further evolutionary progress on this planet.
That is the destiny which he cannot escape. He can attempt
to shirk it or shut his eyes to it, but he will still be performing
it, though maybe inefficiently or even badly. If he accepts
this new illumination, and the view of his destiny which it
implies, the basis of a new ideology is thereby at once deter-
mined. So, too, is a certain general attitude to reality. This
must be a naturalistic attitude, since evolution manifests the
unity of man, including all his spiritual properties and
achievements, with the rest of the universe. Human intel-
lectual and spiritual constructions, together with machines
and societies, birds and plants, minerals and suns and
nebulae, are all parts of the one cosmic process : no part ws
any less natural than any other.

The essence of human destiny is thus to introduce evolv-
ing life? in the person of man, to fuller realization and new
possibilities. For this we need to chart the potentialities of
nature, especially human nature. 4 mon g those new possi-
bilities, hardly or not at all available to pre-human life, are
those of comprehension, beauty, love, woncfer, significance,
creation, morality, holiness, and conscious enjoyment; and
all these can either exist as subjective experience, or as
expressed concretely in matter or through action. Further-
more, through that capacity for fusion or interpenetration
which is an outstanding characteristic of mind, they can be
blended and built up in all kinds of ways. Effective morality
requires comprehension; creation may be the qreation of

120 ,

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

beauty, or significance, or both, and should involve elements
of love as well as of comprehension.

By general consensus these possibilities differ in value.
Their differences are of tw« sorts. Thfjy maf differ simply
in regard to their rightness or wrongness. The knowledge
Anvwhich comprehension rests may be false or incorrect; the
products of material creation — bridges, machines, exhange
systems — may not work, or may work badly; the products of
aesthetic creation — poems, paintings, symphonies — may be
bad, in not adequately expressing or transmitting emotion or
understanding: a code of morality may be false or bad, in
that it produces evil rather than good rfcsults.

But they can also differ in level — in being higher or
lower, in embodying more, or completer, or higher values.
Comprehension may differ in extension, depth or fulness;
works of art may differ in quality and greatness; morals in
nobility and efficacy. Finally, there are what I have called
the highest experiences, like those of the great mystics or
great discoverers, those that may come at the sound of a
musical masterpiece as opposed to just a good melody, or at
the sight of a great picture as opposed to a good piece of paint-
ing, those involved in genuine dedication or sacrifice and in
love at its highest or fullest, as opposed to affection and
ordinary decent behaviour; these, all agree, are not merely
quantitatively different, but qualitatively higher, in their
vely nature: yet there are all degrees, and the lower ranges
may still be good in themselves.

It is thus part of human destiny to be the necessary agent
of the cosmos in understanding more of itself, in bearing
witness to its wonder, beauty, and interest, in creating new
aids to and mechanisms for existence, in experiencing itself,
and so introducing the cosmos to more new and more
valuable experiences.

Be it noted that these possibilities always arise from a
participation of individual minds with other elements of
the cosmos, or at least from their joint involvement. The
mere perception of a leaf, for instance, involves the existence
of the leaf, of some exceedingly complicated anatomical
stfuctures and physiological processes, and the innate capa-
cities of our minds for perceiving colour, size and form, not

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

to mention the unconscious adjustment of perception to past
experience.

Neither beauty or scientific law exist per se> on their own,
in objects: their generation requires the participation of
human minds and their interaction with objects. Even works
of creative imagination can only be realized with the ai4 off,
or on the basis of, past experiences of external reality. (I
should be inclined to say the same in principle about the
ineffable experiences of the mystics, reached by abstracting
the mind from the outer world; but here the situation has
not yet been properly explored or analysed.) The external
element in this joint involvement may be predominantly
human affairs and other human beings, including their
minds; but this in no wise invalidates the general point.

Thus, for man to fulfil his destiny, he must think of him-
self as in partnership with the cosmos. Just as he cannot
exist adequately if he exhausts or overspends the material
resources of the earth, so he cannot realize many possibilities
of beauty or wonder if he too much destroys or tames the
beauty, strangeness, and variety of nature — as by putting
dams and pylons and bungalows all over Snowdonia or the
sea-coast, or killing off big game, or draining every drainable
pond or lake. Evolution thus insists on the oneness of man
with nature, not merely in respect of biological descent and
chemical composition, but because nature is the indispens-
able basis of his material existence, and also the indispens-
able partner in his mental and spiritual achievements.

Such an ideology has something important to tell us about
the fundamental units of humanity, the individual and the
community. The direct and actual realization of those
possibilities which it is man's destiny to actualize is always
effected in and by individuals. A state or, a society cannot
experience significance or holiness. If a society becomes
significant, it is in the minds of its citizens; if it achieves
holiness, as in all deifications of the state or its rulers, the
holiness is thrust upon it by individual minds. An evolu-
tionary ideology is thus a valuable reminder of that real
primacy of the individual which all totalitarian ideologies
attempt to deny or destroy. The community, together with
its organs, including the state, provides the framework for

122.

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

individual lives, and is the vehicle of the continuity and
change required for further evolution: of itself it cannot
realize any new possibilities for life, but only some of the
means for the attainment o&that end. j

The individual has primacy in another way. Not only are
hujnan individuals, in the shape of developed personalities,
biologically and intrinsically higher than the community
or the state, but they include the highest products of the
cosmic process of which we have any knowledge. But, while
human individuals have their biological individuality fully
determined for them by the automatic processes of differen-
tiation and growth, they have to develop their mental indivi-
duality, or personality, after birth: and this development
can reach very different levels of completeness and richness,
effectiveness and achievement. Thus, one of the main possi-
bilities which it is man's destiny to realize is the production
of more fully developed individual personalities.

Our evolutionary ideology needs to bring to men's notice
the possibilities open to human beings and the techniques
by which they may be realized — possibilities of aesthetic
and intellectual experience, of more acute perception and
awareness, of health, of physical and mental control, of
memory, of quick and effective education, of integration, of
spiritual as well as of physical training, of hypnosis and the
unconscious mind, and little-explored regions like mystical
experience and so-called paranormal phenomena. If so, the
common man of the future will be ashamed if he does not
attain a far higher level of experience and personality than
to-day's miserable average, and states and societies'Vill be
judged by the opportunities they provide for such attain-
ment.

But the humjin community is as indispensable as the
human individual. Indeed, it is impossible to think of a
human individual apart from some human group; the two
both play as indispensable and complementary roles in the
situation in which the cosmic process now finds itself as do
heredity and environment in the development of an organ-
ism. Accordingly, both the present and the future of the
community must enter into our ideology. In the present,
there is ordinary civic duty from the individual, and in

123

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

return his satisfaction in feeling useful. The community
provides the mechanism for all that is distinctively human ;
while its structure can, to a considerable degree, guide
human impulses into civilized channels and away from the
horrible outlets of primitive cruelty and violence. The com-
munity ensures the continuity of the traditions and idea/? hi
and by which individuals live. In addition, the community
is the necessary vehicle and mechanism for desirable long-
term change as well, as for continuity.

Further, any modern ideology must concern itself with
the community of man in its entirety, the potential One
World of all the racfes, nations, classes, and individuals, past,
present, and to come, that go to make up the human species;
and accordingly must think of the narrower (if now better
organized) community of the nation in relation to this larger
and more lasting whole.

The idea of the community and its future thus enters into
our ideology to satisfy man's desire to work for something
bigger than himself and more enduring than his own group
or community, and his need to compensate for the imper-
fections and miseries of the present.

Crude individualism leads to crude hedonism as well as
to selfishness and ruthlessness ; and over-emphasis on indi-
vidual development to a disguised hedonism, to sterile
asceticism, or to selfishly individual salvationism. Crude
communism, if I may use the word in a rather unusual serfse,
as a system that maintains the primacy of the community,
leads straight to totalitarianism, the Fiihrer principle, and
state-worship, while over-emphasis on the future evolution
of the community will enthrone millenary illusions as
supreme. In such circumstances, men forget that, as has been
well said, "eternity is now", and that their.dcstiny and their
duty can only be truly fulfilled by present realization and
achievements, as well as by concern and sacrifice for a distant
future, however roseate.

To the individual personality and his development I must
now return. A great deal has been written about man's
psychological and spiritual needs, often on the assumption
that needs can be equated with cravings or wishes, and that
any and every such need ought somehow to be satisfied. This

124.

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

is as false as it would be to assert that man's desires for eating
are to be equated with his needs for food, and that his greed
should somehow be satisfied as much as his hunger. We
must consider the matter fro>m a quite 'different angle : how
does the personality work, how does it develop, and how
c'ovld its working and the mode of its development be
improved?

Let me take a couple of instances. We owe to Freud and
his followers the discovery that all normal infants are saddled
with a burden of guilt, conscious or unconscious, as a result
of having to repress the impulses of aggression in the primal
infantile conflict of hate and love for the parents. We have
a "need" for getting rid of this burden, for resolving the
conflict, for moral or spiritual certitude. One way of doing
so is by projecting our guilt outwards on to others, and so
making them appear as a legitimate enemy, against whom
our impulses of hate and aggression can then find a per-
mitted outlet. But the existence of this need and of the sense
of its satisfaction does not guarantee its Tightness. On the
contrary, history demonstrates over and over again that it
has often served not only to justify war but to make wars
bloodier and more cruel.

The sense of guilt can only be rightly overcome by recog-
nizing the fact of one's own guilt-complex, and by facing the
internal conflict and reconciling its two parties in the higher
syhthesis of an integrated personality. Absolute certitude of
complete moral Tightness can never be obtained, for all men
are inevitably subject to moral error ; and the sense of having
obtained such certitude is always a false illusion, and'bound
to produce bad results.

The so-called need /or intellectual certitude springs
largely from thejeal need for action in a world too complex
for our ignorance to understand. It is often met by the pro-
vision of dogma, whose absolute truth is buttressed by
authority or guaranteed by revelation. This is temporarily
satisfying, but in the long run has always broken down in
the face of the accumulation of new facts and new knowledge.
Absolute intellectual certitude, indeed, is as impossible as
absolute moral certitude. In this sphere man has invented
a better method for dealing with the problem — the method

125

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

of science. This, by denying the possibility of absolute or
complete knowledge and insisting on the value of doubt, has,
in the short space of three centuries, permitted man to build
up a greater vDlumd of established and properly organized
knowledge than was possible in all previous history.

In this there is a lesson for all other aspects of existciy:^.
The scientific method of the working hypothesis, as the only
gateway to the erection of comprehensive theories, laws, and
principles, to the establishment of firmer knowledge, and
to the securing of more successful practice and better control
of nature, can and should be utilized in other spheres — in
morals, in politics, ifi social affairs, in religion.

In other words, any new ideology must not be dogmatic,
and must refrain from any claim to absoluteness or com-
pleteness; it must utilize scientific method, so as to be
expansive, flexible, and unitive instead of rigid and eventually
restrictive or divisive. Tolerance, respect for cultural and
individual variety, acceptance of difference — these are some
of the counterparts of the scientific method in other fields.
However, they themselves should not be employed rigidly or
in any absolute sense, but in the same sort of way that the
principle of the working hypothesis is applied in the natural
sciences.

The question of course remains, how such a mere intel-
lectual analysis can become a social force, how a set of ideas
can develop into an ideology, how the evolutionary concept
of man's destiny can come to affect that destiny.

What celebrations will be devised of human achievement
and human possibilities, yrhat pilgrimages and gatherings,
what ceremonies of participation, what solemnizations of the
steps in individual lives and personal relations? What rituals
and techniques of "salvation", of self-develppment and self-
transcendence will be worked out, what new incentives and
new modes of education, what methods for purgation and
for achieving freedom from the burdens of guilt and fear
without inflicting harm on oneself or on others, what new
formulations of knowledge and consequent belief? What
modes will the future find of distilling its ideas of its destiny
into compelling expression, in drama or architecture, pai/it-
ing or story, or perhaps in wholly new forms of art?

126 -

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

To such questions I cannot presume to attempt answers,
but will merely point out that they pose themselves, and
must sometime and somewhere be answered. What I am
sure of is that some such* naturalistit and' evolutionary
synthesis as I have indicated is inevitable, and that the
resultant view of human destiny is essentially true, to what-
ever extent further analysis may modify or develop it. And
if it is essentially true, it will prevail. It will prevail through
the efforts of those whom its truth cojnpels to belief, and
their belief to action. As always happens with new truths
and beliefs, those believers will at the outset be but a tiny
minority: but such a minority is capable of leavening the
whole lump.

■ 127

NEW LI.GHT ON HEREDITY

jaRGE-scale scientific advance depends primarily on fijjd-
-Lrfing the naturalistic explanation of some natural process or
set of facts. Usually what is important is the material basis of
the process; once that has been discovered, the explanation
becomes evident. Thus Galileo and Newton gave a natural-
istic explanation of the movements of the heavenly bodies;
while the whole of*modern chemistry dates from the dis-
covery of the atomic basis of matter. Of course, scientific
advance depends also on the discovery of new facts. Think
of discoveries like Galvani's, of muscular contraction under
electric stimulus; or Rontgen's, of a new kind of radiation so
enigmatic as to have to be called X-rays ; of Fleming's, that
the growth of mould might prevent the growth of bacteria.
But such discoveries of fact, however novel and exciting, are
important mainly because they set people puzzling after
new explanations of old processes, or on to the trail of a new
and unexpected process to be explained.

Genetics is no exception. Fifty years ago it was not a
science at all — just a series of speculations, weighed down by
superstition and leavened by a few tentatives of scientific-
study. Yet to-day it is rapidly becoming recognized as the
most central and most fundamental of all the life-sciences.
And if we ask how this spectacular progress has been
achieved, the answer is simple : through the discovery of the
material basis of heredity.

In 1859, when Darwin published The Origin of Species,
practically nothing was known, scientifically speaking, about
either heredity or reproduction. Pasteur had not yet proved
that all life came from pre-existing life; the chromosomes
had not even been detected; and it was only just being
realized that sexual reproduction involved the union of two
cells, the tiny male sperm and the bulky female ovum. Only
in the 1880s was it established that the essential part of this
process is the joining up in one nucleus of two sets of
chromosomes from the nuclei of the male and female cells,

128

NEW LIGHT ON HEREDITY

chromosomes being visible threads constant in number for any
one species. In fact, the chromosomes obviously must have
the main say in heredity, for they are the only things that
are contributed equally by bqth parents \o the^new life; and
yet we know that offspring take after their fathers as much
as tfiey do after their mothers. Equally significant is the fact
that the normal complement of the cells of the body is two
entire packs or sets of chromosomes, but that before sexual
reproduction the two packs separate from each other, so
that each sexual cell, whether egg or sperm, receives only
one. The normal double number — twQ packs — is of course
restored by the union of egg and sperm at fertilization.

But the actual mode of inheritance of particular visible
characters remained obscure and all sorts of speculations
were rife. Perhaps the chief source of confusion was that no
one had really clearly distinguished between what an animal
or plant looks like — its visible and measurable characters —
and what it can transmit to future generations — its genetic
constitution. The German zoologist, Weismann, had made
a good beginning by pointing out that quite different-looking
individuals could be alike in their hereditary capacities.
Some of the variation that we find in any assemblage of
animals or plants is due to differences in the conditions of
life (like the fleshiness of plants brought up in salty condi-
tions or the conversion of the permanently aquatic axolotl
into a land salamander by a meal of thyroid) or to use or
disuse (like the larger arm-muscles of a blacksmith). These
we call modifications \ and we now know, as Weismann
asserted on theoretical grounds, that they are not inheritable.
But if you bring up all your experimental group in identical
conditions, individuals jvill still differ somewhat among
themselves, and fhis part of the variation is due to internal
differences and is inheritable.

The failure to distinguish between these fundamentally
different sources of variation had allowed all sorts of errone-
ous view to flourish, notably the Lamarckian superstition
that so-called acquired characteristics could be inherited.
However, Weismann's work did little or nothing to under-
mine another basically erroneous view: that heredity in-
volved thq blending of parental characters — and also the
. e . 129

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WlNE

blending of whatever it was in the hereditary constitution
that determined those characters. Darwin himself had
assumed this to be true, though the results of the assumption
puzzled him sorely And towards the end of the century this
view still vitiated the conclusions of the school of biometri-
cians, like Galton and Karl Pearson, who attempted to under-
stand heredity by purely mathematical methods. It was
reserved for Mendel to make the further decisive discovery,
complementary to that of Weismann, that similar-looking
individuals could yet be quite different in their hereditary
capacities. For instance, Mendel's classical cross between
tall and dwarf peas gave a ratio of three tails to one dwarf in
the second generation. But when the talis were bred from,
it was found that only one out of every three, on the average,
would breed true; the other two, when intercrossed, once
more threw 25 per cent, of dwarfs. Now this, of course,
depends on the fact, familiar enough to-day, of dominance ',
another of Mendel's discoveries. The gene for tallness is
called dominant, but its partner, which produces dwarfness
when in double dose — in other words when it is received
from both parents — is recessive, which means that it does
not show, does not produce any visible effect, when it is
present with the dominant gene for tallness.

However, Mendel's most fundamental discovery, on
which indeed the whole of modern genetics rests, was that
the basis of heredity consists of material units in the repro-
ductive cells; that these units are self-perpetuating and self-
copying and do not blend or get diluted when crossed; and
that they can be recon^'bined to give new and true-breeding
combinations. Thus, when Mendel crossed his tall and
dwarf strains of garden peas, although the dwarf character
disappeared in the first generation, which was all tall, some-
thing that determined that character had not been affected,
for perfectly normal dwarfs reappeared to make up a quarter
of the next generation. The same thing happened to the
greens in a cross between strains possessing yellow and green
seeds. Mendel rightly concluded that there must be per-
manent material units, or factors, responsible for the deter-
mination of tallness yersus dwarfness, and of yellow seeds
versus green seeds; that these existed in pairs in the body

130

NEW LIGHT ON HEREDITY

of the individual, but with only one or other of each pair
present in the reproductive cells. The unit-factors now go
by the more convenient name of genes^ and each gene can
exist in different forms or %alleles y like* yelloW-determining
versus green-determining in peas. Mendel then made a
£rass involving two pairs of alleles — between one strain
which was tall with green seeds by another which was dwarf
with yellow seeds. Again the recessive characters, green and
dwarf, disappeared in the first generation, all of which were
tall and had yellow seeds; but in the second, not only did he
recover the two original types, but obtained two novelties as
well : tall yellow and green dwarf — recbmbinations, we call
them. And some of these bred true.

Mendel's strange sad story is well known — of how he
published his results as far back as 1865; how none of the
leading biologists of the time paid any attention to him or
them; and how, sixteen years after he died, a disappointed
man, they were unearthed independently by three biologists
in 1900 and rightly hailed as epoch-making. The next ten
years of research, under Bateson's leadership in England,
established the fact that Mendelian heredity existed in every
kind of animal and plant, and made many detailed dis-
coveries about its workings. The decade ending in 1920 saw
the leadership pass to America. Here, Morgan and his group
of young men, using the ideal research material provided by
the fruit-fly Drosophila, and supported by the results of the
many workers who had been studying the chromosomes
themselves under the microscope, proved once and for all
that the chromosomes are the main organ of heredity. They
contain the material basis of heredity, in the shape of the
hundreds or even thousands of separate genes, arranged end
to end in a definite order. And Mendel's laws, besides many
other facts and rules of heredity, are due simply to the
visible manoeuvres of the chromosomes — the way they
behave in ordinary cell-division before the formation of
sexual cells, and at fertilization.

The other great advance of this period was the discovery
of how inherited variations originate. The Morgan school
found that new mendelizing characters — characters which
are inherited according to Mendel's law — arise by mutation:

• 131

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

a sudden but permanent change in a gene producing an
effect of definite extent. For example, one gene concerned in
producing the usual red colour of the fruit-fly's eyes, mutated
spontaneously'on a number of separate occasions to a different
state in which it produced, or determined, white eyes. This
same gene also, on other occasions, mutated to several ot&eV
mutant alleles which produced different shades of pink in
the eye. In the next ten years the rate of spontaneous muta-
tion was measured and other kinds of mutations were dis-
covered, for instance, mutation due to the addition or
subtraction of whole chromosomes, or sections of chromo-
somes, and eventually it became clear that wherever a
mendelizing character-difference existed, it must have
originated by mutation.

Then Muller discovered, in 1927, how to produce muta-
tions artificially, by means of X-rays, and at a rate several
hundred times as great as that found in nature. We now
know that other radiations too can provoke mutational
changes in genes, and so can certain chemicals and probably
other agencies. Almost invariably, the nature of the muta-
tion, including the effect it has on its possessor, bears no
particular relation to the agency that caused it : it looks as if
most mutation is due to a physical or chemical shock, which
causes a slight alteration or rearrangement of the structure
of a gene.

Let me now point out that Mendelism immediately ex-
plained various everyday facts which otherwise remained a
puzzle t on any other theory. How, for instance, can one
account for the wide differences — many of them obviously
of genetic origin — which are often to be seen between the
brothers and sisters of a single human family? The mendel-
ian answer is simple: by recombination*— recombination
which shuffles and redistributes the parents' genes in all
kinds of new arrangements.

It also clears up the skipping of a generation by some
characters, the apparent non-inheritance of genius, and in
general the cases where children do not inherit some strongly
marked characteristic which their parents possess. Such
cases are puzzling only because, before Mendel had taugfit
us how to view the material basis of heredity, people con-

132

NEW LIGHT ON HEREDITY

fused inheritance in the popular sense — the reappearance
in children of characters found in their parents — with gene-
tics in the scientific sense — the transmission and distribution
of material units of heredity, along the strean>of the genera-
tions. The gene for a character that skips a generation is
frwsmitted all right, but it is recessive, so that the character
itself cannot reappear until the second generation at earliest.
Genius, in the proper sense of extraordinary gifts, must
almost always be due to a recombination of genes which is,
statistically speaking, extremely improbable. This auto-
matically gets taken to pieces before the genius reproduces,
so that although its constituent genes are transmitted, their
reappearance in the same special combination is even more
astronomically unlikely than its original emergence. And
this is, of course, merely a special case of the general men-
delian principle that what is transmitted in heredity is not
the particular gene-outfits of the parents, but new rearrange-
ments of the genes that make up those outfits.

During the same period, every animal or plant that was
properly investigated was found to contain a store of mutated
genes in its chromosomes. These constitute a reserve supply
of variability which can be drawn on to adapt the species to
changed circumstances if need be. Meanwhile, Darwin's
great principle of natural selection came finally into its own.
There is nothing mysterious about natural selection. It is a
sltorthand phrase to describe the results of the automatic and
obvious process of differential survival ; the fact that, on the
average, more individuals containing variations that are
favourable in the conditions of theif life will survive'than of
those with less favourable variations. If you plant equal
numbers of cold-resistant and cold-susceptible plants in a
cold climate, tfye next generation will contain more of the
former and fewer of the latter: that is a very simple example
of natural selection at work. Then mathematics was enlisted
and proved that a mutation which gave its possessors even
only a slight advantage in each generation — say i per cent.,
which means that a hundred of the mutated form would
survive on the average, against ninety-nine of the old type —
tfould replace the old gene and become the normal type in a
very shotf space of time, biologically speaking. And in

133

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

principle it became clear that mutation plus natural selection
could account for the facts of evolution.

The next step was the discovery that the rate of inheritable
variation itself is under a certain degree of genetic control.
Mutation provides the basic raw materials of evolution;
mendelian recombination then distributes these raw mater-
ials of change in every possible arrangement, many of them
new and valuable. From the point of view of the species, it
clearly matters that the rates of production and redistribu-
tion of these units of change should neither be too low to
risk getting caught short if change is demanded, nor too
high to interfere with the stability of the species and its
adjustment to current conditions. It was found that genes
exist which regulate the rate of mutation of other genes, with
the inevitable consequence that during evolution, mutation-
rate has been broadly adjusted, by natural selection, to
evolutionary needs. Then, it is obvious that different types
of breeding system will allow different degrees of mendelian
recombination. Thus, when there is obligatory inbreeding,
as in plants or animals with self-fertilization or with sexual
reproduction wholly suppressed, there can be no recombina-
tion at all; while with obligatory wide outcrossing, as for
instance in maize, there will be a great deal. Some species
and groups, by cutting down the degree of outcrossing, have
gone in for the short-range advantages of stability and of
completeness of adaptation. But many of these are likely 'co
die out if any marked alteration in conditions, such as a
sharp change in climate, demands new adaptations. Most
animate and plants have struck some degree of balance
between stability and plasticity by adopting outcrossing
systems which yet involve a certain .degree of inbreeding.

So far all the discoveries I have mentioned have had to
do with obvious mendelian genes — genes concerned with
readily distinguishable character-differences and distributed
according to Mendel's laws. However, two puzzles re-
mained. One was the existence of heritable character-differ-
ences which are not sharply marked off, but run into each
other — so-called continuous characters like human stature,
for instance. Quite recently, however, by rather complicated
experiments with the exceptionally favourable material pro-

134

NEW LIGHT ON HEREDITY

vided by Drosophila, it has been shown that the factors
responsible for such characters are mendelian in the sense
that they are lodged in the chromosomes, but that they act in
co-operating groups, each member of a group exerting a
small quantitative effort, plus or minus, on some continuous
or ^quantitative character, like size, or proportions, or fer-
tility. Because there are always many similar units at work in
a group, they have been styled polygenes. The single factors
in any group of polygenes cannot be isolated by ordinary
mendelian methods. However, the knowledge that they are
lodged in the chromosomes, and so must be subject to
mendelian principles in their transmission, makes it possible
to use the mathematical methods invented by the bio-
metricians half a century ago, to make much more accurate
estimates of their distribution and behaviour in heredity.
And this discovery turns out to be of some practical im-
portance.

The second pu7zle, of methods of inheritance that cannot
possibly be fitted into the mendelian scheme, has also quite
recently been solved in principle. They are due to the exist-
ence of genes outside the nucleus, in the general protoplasm
of the cell, and therefore called plasmagenes. Since plasma-
genes are loose in the cell, not joined up to form super-units
of accurate composition like the genes in the chromosomes,
the number of them in any one cell can vary and their
distribution to later generations does not follow the regu-
larities of the mendelian laws. Perhaps the most striking
examples of plasmagenes are those associated with the bodies
which contain the green chlorophyll' of plants — the piastids.
They are self-copying and occasionally mutate, and so are
clearly genie in nature, though they are subject to a certain
amount of contrpl by the main body of genes in the chromo-
somes. Although plasmagenes play only a small and sub-
sidiary role in heredity as a whole, the discovery of their
existence enables us to fit various otherwise puzzling facts
into the modern extended gene-theory of genetics.

A very spectacular recent step in the progress of genetics
has been the discovery of the chemical nature of genes.
Through the use of X-ray analysis, spectography under the
microscope, and microchemical methods, we now know that

- r 35

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

genes consist of certain kinds of protein in association with
certain kinds of nucleic acids; for brevity's sake, we call
them nucleoproteins. The nucleic acid is a necessary part of
the mechanism by which the cqpying gets done. Darlington
calls it the midwife molecule for the birth of new genes. It
seems to act as a sort of chemical template, closely applied
to the elongated protein molecule, and somehow helping it
to assemble new atoms into the same shape and pattern as
itself. Particles of purified extracts of nucleic acid can even
penetrate into the interior of some kinds of bacteria and
there can permanently replace certain of their genes — a
genetic transformation effected by chemical means. Further-
more, nucleic acids of one sort or another constitute the
essential basis of viruses. Some plant viruses can be obtained
as pure crystalline nucleoproteins; the protein component
seems to be merely protective, while infection and further
reproduction depend on the nucleic acid component alone.
Our knowledge of the material basis of heredity has pene-
trated below the biological to the more basic chemical level.
Clearly an almost unlimited new field has been opened up to
scientific exploration. Indeed, the advance of genetics has
led us towards the central secret of life itself, for after all the
essential property of life, which distinguishes it from not-life,
is the possession of an organization capable of reproducing
or copying itself.

Fifty years ago we knew nothing worth knowing abdut
the material basis of heredity. To-day it is revealed as a vast
system of self-copying units of nucleoprotein, most of them
elaborately integrated in the highly organized structures
called chromosomes.

136

LIFE'S IMPROBABLE LIKENESSES

T^here is a Japanese legend which tells of the sequel to
• the struggle for supremacy, during the twelfth century
a.d., of two leading feudal families, the Heike and the Genji.
The struggle ended in 1 155 with the overwhelming victory
of the Genji in the naval battle of Dan-no-ura, off the south-
west tip of the country. The defeated Heike, true to the
Samurai tradition, committed mass suicide by throwing
themselves into the sea. Immediately •afterwards, all the
crabs of the region appeared stamped with the face of a
resentful Japanese warrior, thus reincarnating the dead
Heike nobles. The face-bearing crabs are called Heike-gani
or Heike crabs ; the Japanese will not eat them to this day,
and an exceptionally homely or ugly man is likely to be told
"You look like a Heike-Gani."

That is the legend. The facts are that the Heike were
defeated at Dan-no-ura; that the crab Dorippe japonica,
which is widespread in Japanese waters, is called Heike-gani
and does bear on its carapace the exact likeness of a medieval
Japanese warrior; and that, though edible, it is not eaten by
the Japanese. Professor Yamayita, of the Institute of Folk-
lore in Tokyo, tells me that in past centuries it was some-
times called Oni-gani, oni meaning a frightening kind of
demon who may also be the spirit of a dead man.

Professor H. J. Muller, the eminent American biologist,
showed me a specimen which he brought back from a* recent
visit to Japan. He agrees with me that Dorippe provides the
only known case of the mimicry of man by another species
of animal. It mgy, however, be mentioned that the white
mark on the back of the common European garden spider
is quite definitely a cross, and the resemblance may quite
possibly have been of advantage in causing people to think
twice about killing this kind of spider; anyhow, as Dr
• Bristow, our great authority on spiders, tells me, it was in
many places considered unlucky to do so, and this would
h4ve polished up any original rough cruciform pattern into
a more detailed and striking resemblance. We would not
e* 137

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

expect to find this selective superstition or such a close
resemblance in Moslem countries; but, unfortunately, the
range of the species is exclusively Christian !

The resemblance of Dorifipe to an angry traditional
Japanese warrior is far too specific and far too detailed to be
merely accidental : it is a specific adaptation, which can eniy
have been brought about by means of natural selection
operating over centuries of time, the crabs with a more
perfect resemblance having been less eaten.

This statement is usually greeted with incredulity by the
layman, but there are large numbers of equally improbable
likenesses in biology which undoubtedly owe their evolu-
tionary origin to selection — the astonishing resemblance of
leaf-insects to leaves, of stick-insects to sticks, of flower-
spiders and flower-mantises to flowers, or various harmless
moths and beetles and other insects to wasps and hornets,
and so forth. In all such cases, it can now be taken as estab-
lished that the precision of the likeness is due to the action
of natural selection — in other words that over many genera-
tions those individuals which happened to look a little more
like their models survived and reproduced themselves on
the average a little more often than those which looked less
like the models. It can be demonstrated that even a very
small biological advantage will in the course of generations
add up to produce a ljirge and striking result.

The objections raised against the idea that such strari'ge
resemblances are of biological advantage to their possessors
and are therefore due to the action of natural selection run
something like this: How can the animal know what it ought
to look like? and even if it did know, how could it manage
to achieve the likeness? Or contrariwise, as Humpty Dumpty
would have said, the likeness is just an accident, and has no
significance for its possessor. Or alternatively, the likeness is
miraculously exact, but how could it have been produced
except by some omnipotent divinity who has thought up
these striking methods of demonstrating his powers?

The answer to the first objection is very simple — the
animal doesn't know anything about it; and even if it did, no
efforts on its part could help to bring about the likene&s.
Evolutionary transformation does not occur as a result of an

138

life's improbable likenesses

animal's wishes or efforts. One major result of the modern
science of genetics is a negative one — that the effects of
disuse or of changes in the environment (like heat or cold or
moisture, still less the sighfc or leaves or sticks) just aren't
inherited. Its main positive upshot is as follows: that evolu-
tionary change occurs through the natural selection of herit-
able variations or mutations; that mutations are due to
chemical changes in the material units of heredity, the genes;
that most mutations are harmful or yseless, but the rare
favourable ones are automatically preserved and incorporated
in the race, just because they are favourable — their possessors
survive and reproduce themselves a little more often.

The difficulty about the start of any such process is a
more real one. The variations that actually get used by
natural selection seem almost invariably to be small muta-
tions, with quite slight effects on the animal's or plant's
visible characters. That being so, now could we conceive
that the first steps in the direction of a human face, for
instance, could have been any use to our crabs? For clearly
people are not going to be put off eating a creature by super-
stitious fears unless there is some fairly striking reason.

The answer of modern evolutionary theory is that in such
cases natural selection has merely operated to polish up a
prior condition which was purely accidental: and luckily for
evolutionary theory, wc can often point to the existence of
accidental predispositions of this sort. In crabs, for instance,
the back of the carapace is usually not smooth, but embossed
in relief with bumps and depressions (which are related to
the underlying structure of the body); and not infrequently
the pattern thus produced bears a rough (and doubtless
quite accidental) resemblance to some object or other, and
in several cases to a human face.

On English shores there is a little crab of the genus
Corystes, the pattern of whose shell is sufficiently like a
human face for the species to have been given the specific
name cassivelaunus, after the chieftain who led the ancient
• Britons against Julius Caesar. But the likeness is never more
than a rough one, and in any case, Corystes is a very small
crab which is not used as food by human beings. The result
is that the*esemblance has not only stayed rough, but is very

• 139

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

variable, some crabs showing scarcely any likeness to a face.
However, it is easy to conceive of an accidental resemblance,
no better than the best among Corystes, which would be
capable of afousing superstitious fear and wonder — how
could a human face get imprinted on a crab's back unless
some god or devil had put it there with some mysterious
intent? And then the rest would follow automatically. The
crabs which were more like a face, especially more like a face
typical of the local culture, would tend to be spared, while
their less miraculous brothers and sisters would continue to
be eaten, until in the course of the generations (remember
that perhaps a thousand would be available for our species,
for an effective resemblance must have been in existence
long before the battle of Dan-no-ura) the crude and acci-
dental original had been polished up into the truly astonish-
ing likeness of an ancient Samurai which the crabs now bear.

In passing, there is a possible way of testing the validity
of this conclusion. If Dorippe japonica has a wide geograph-
ical range, we may expect that the crabs that live on the
shores of other human cultures either gain no protection
from the pattern of their carapace, in which case the re-
semblance to a human face will be much less exact; or they
do gain protection, when we may prophesy that the re-
semblance will be an exact one, but will be to some rather
different human type, and certainly not to a specifically
Japanese warrior.

To return for a moment to Corystes, this little crab,
though its resemblance to a human face is not adaptive, has
another peculiarity which admirably illustrates both the way
in which an extremely beautiful adaptation can be built up
from non-adaptive beginnings, and also the specific nature
of adaptation. In place of the short thread-like feelers of
ordinary crabs, spaced somewhat apart on the head, the
antennae of Corystes are longer than its whole body, are
pressed together, and project directly forward — or rather
upwards, for the animal lives throughout the day buried in
the sand in an upright position, with nothing showing but
the very tip of the antennae. This mode of life is an adapta-
tion to escape the attention of skates and other predatory
fish; at night Corystes comes out and crawls over *he surface

140

life's improbable likenesses

of the sand to forage. And the antennae are an adaptation to
the mode of life : with the aid of interlocking stiff hairs along
their edges, they form a tube through which the animal can
breathe, drawing in a current of clean water through the
sand to be passed over the gills. The adaptation is highly
specific to burrowing in sand: in mud it would be no good,
but would clog up. Mud-living crustaceans live in burrows,
and draw in currents of water down the burrows by con-
stantly vibrating the swimmerets on their abdomen.

The antennae of ordinary crabs have nothing to do with
breathing: but it only needed comparatively small changes
to adapt them to a respiratory function-.— less space between
them, an increase of their length, and the enlargement of the
hairs on their fore and aft margins.

The point I want to make is that practically all the char-
acteristics of an animal are adaptive — in other words, have
been moulded by natural selection so as to perform some
special function. And this applies as much to an animal's
appearance as to its construction or its inherited patterns of
behaviour. The difference is that the appearance is generally
adjusted to the sense-organs and habits of some other
creature, either the prey that the animal needs to catch or
the enemies from whom it needs to escape. And of course
some adaptations are more curious and surprising than
others — certainly the adaptation of Dorippe to not being
esften by Japanese is one of the most curious that we know.

However, there arc plenty of other equally surprising
examples of animals or plants acquiring a resemblance to
other animals or plants, or to inanimate objects. •

Most people know of walking-stick insects; but there are
in reality many insects of many different groups, from grass-
hoppers to moth caterpillars, which look like twigs. As for
leaf-insects, their number is legion. Some are like one big
green leaf, others like scattered bits of foliage; some like
just-dead leaves, others like dead leaves with mould-spots
and holes in them, others like half-decayed leaves. And there
are also leaf-frogs and leaf-toads, and, most curious of all,
a leaf-fish in the Amazon, Monocirrhus, which gets within
striking distance of its prey by looking precisely like a dead
leaf drifting in the current.

141

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The leaf-fish Monoclrrhus escapes detection by its prey by looking like a dead
leaf drifting in the current. Note the imitation stalk, leaf-tip and mid-rib.

Then there are the insects of the family Membracidae.
These are all defenceless little plant-bugs which spend most
of their time in exposed situations on the twigs or leaves of
plants, sucking the sap, so that they are in considerable need
of protection from hungry predators. Furthermore, they all
have a large hood-like outgrowth on the fore-part of their
thorax, whose primary function is not known, but which
provides excellent raw material for developing a resemblance
to various non-edible objects, often masking the whole body
underneath. Thus in some membracids the outgrowth has
been elongated fore-and-aft to look like a grass-seed; in
others it has been moulded into one or more sharp hooks, 'so
that the creatures appear exactly like thorns; in one it is
orange-coloured, hollow, and enormously swollen, completely
hiding the rest of the animal, and has achieved a striking
resemblance to the chrysalis of a moth, whose brilliant orange
colour is known to be a warning signal of nauseous taste; in
another it has been flattened from side topside, expanded,
and coloured green, so that the creature bears a strong
resemblance to a leaf-cutter ant carrying back to the nest a
piece of green leaf which it has bitten off a neighbouring
tree; in some, it has been turned into the semblance of a bit
of bark. In others, into a sweeping sickle-shaped structure,
resembling nobody knows what; and finally, in the most
curious case of all, Heteronotus, it has been enlarged and
moulded into the semblance of a worker-ant, of t a species

142

life's improbable likenesses

which is abundant in the bug's surroundings. Of course it is
only a hollow shell, concealing the animal's real body; but
from above the resemblance to an ant is amazing, and, since
ants, with their gregarious habits, their powerful bite, and
their reservoirs of formic acid, are well protected against
mqpt insectivorous creatures, it must be of great biological
advantage to the plant-bug.

Ants indeed are commonly mimicked by quite a number
of ground-living insects besides plant-bugs — beetles, two-
winged flies, and grasshoppers — and by spiders. I myself
have been doubly deceived by a spider's ant-mimicry. On an
island in Lake Victoria in Central Afric^, I had my attention
forcibly directed to the tree-ants which swarmed over the
dense vegetation, because every time I accidentally got one
on my person, it inflicted a painful bite. Suddenly I noticed
one give a somewhat un-antlike jump; on inspection, it
turned out to be a spider. This was the first example of
ant-mimicry by spiders which I had seen, and I set about
trying to find some more specimens. After some searching
I discovered what I thought was another: but when I had
got it safely into a glass tube it turned out to be an ant !

How is a spider to look like an ant when an ant has a pair
of antennae on its head and only six legs on its body, while
a spider has eight legs and no antennae? What is more, how
is a spider going to acquire the long slender waist of an ant?
What happens is very illuminating. In general, spiders that
mimic ants first of all become more elongated. Secondly, the
front pair of legs are placed farther forward than usual, and
are not used for walking, but are held out in front sp as to
look like feelers. And thirdly, a waist is "painted in" by
making the sides of the middle part of the body light-
coloured so that they do not catch the eye, while a central
narrow dark band with a dark oval patch behind gives an
excellent imitation of an ant's waist and hind abdomen.

This sort of visual deception is very commonly employed
to obtain a resemblance. The same trick of painting in a
waist is often used by the beetles and grasshoppers which
mimic ants, and equally by those numerous chunky-bodied
insects which mimic wasps.

Amon^butterflies which escape detection by looking like

H3

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

dead leaves, patches of mould are often imitated by spots of
special colour, and holes in the leaf by wing-patches which
are transparent because no scales are produced on them. In
the extraordinary Draconia, not only is this device used, but
the wings grow with irregular edges, giving an exact imita-
tion of a half-decayed leaf. f .

Similarly, fish that escape detection by looking like marine
vegetation are generally beset with weed-like outgrowths.
The Australian sea-horse Phyllopteryx has become quite
fantastic in this way,*looking like a surrealist's idea of a cross
between animal and vegetable, with imitations of three
quite different kinds of seaweed sprouting from various parts
of its body.

Perhaps the most curious of such deceptions is shown in
the resemblance of various insects and spiders to a bird's
dropping. The creature often manages to imitate the viscid
soft appearance of a dropping so perfectly that the eye is
completely deceived, and it is easier to use touch to decide
whether the object is an animal or a piece of excrement.

Such examples completely dispose of the idea that the
protective resemblances of animals can be due to the direct
effect of the conditions of the environment. This is also
borne out by various facts of true mimicry, when a harmless
and palatable animal gains a biological advantage by looking
like some other animal which is relatively immune from
attack owing to its possession of a formidable weapon, like
the sting of a wasp or the bite of a poisonous snake or the
jaws and formic acid of an ant, or to its having a nauseous
taste, eften coupled with general toughness and inedibility,
as in the milkweed butterfly, various swallow-tails, and many
other brightly coloured butterflies. Here it often happens
that the two animals, mimic and model, owe their similar
appearance to quite different means. Thus the pigments
used to produce the sham warning colours of edible butter-
fly mimics are often chemically quite different from those
used to produce the real warning colours of their models.

The converse proof is provided by the numerous cases
where the biologically advantageous resemblance is only
evolved where it will i>e seen, like the grasshopper which
imitates a decaying green leaf, but not with those parts of its

144

Some crabs, like Corystes casuvelaunus> happen to show a crude
resemblance to a human face.

Starting from such crude accidental resemblance, the I lei kc Crabs
from Japan have achieved a startling likeness to the face of a
Japanese Samurai fighter — so startling thai the} are regarded .is
reincarnations of dead warriors, and are never eaten.

Moth into ,i pulict unit ition ot i sidi twit; on i bnmh

1» I Mi urn I \ iUi il \\t t r\

\nts in kit iloiu In most inM.it titers uior hnt»K, llu \ ue iminnLd In \ irnui
li mnliss him its and sj iiUrs

/k< I his litth Mtmhiuul pi mt bun {lltti xwtu ) i ioni|kuh
lonieiled iioin \ie\\ In a liollow c\iriM«iui on its th u i\ wlmli

• from above looks i \aith like .in .ml

*Ut/ou Spiilns nu\ mimic, ants In elongating the. ir hod), gnmmc 1
waist in J holding tlmr limit leys in tin position of m ant's antenna

77 t y» i I S /> mi

VI t £/ // S /> //<

Aboie I Ik hmnless C learvung moth Ins lost t lie si lies on its wintis,
tapered its .ibdoinui, ind buomts 10 oured in blaek .md w llov\ Lin Us <> is to
resemble a 1 1 or nit

«

BeloL. I Ins small butkrrh has doclopid a hi*, front it tin hind ionu # r
of Us wings, complete with falsi head, false c\i and filst anknnai, to
deflect the attacks of predators from its true head, v\huh is lonuilid
b<t\wen tlu protruding antirior m»rgins of its fort vwngs

I he lolour iml marking of tin luukmotli \tinthnpan mut s atn <_\<utl\ in.itv.li
tin bark on whuli 11 lots, but onl\ it it iliyns hsl If in tin n«ht ilirution

J'Iil position adopted b\ the Garden Carpet Moth {\anthon hue fhntuatd)
ilso makes it virtnallv indistmgu] habit from tht lulun pattlud Mirf.iu on
v\ hit h it spends the dd\

4b< t Mo t dt-vrt j. lints jroUil ihcmsiJws from bun., i ikn b\ w nmm
toimidibli spins but in st< n\ disut sonic, , do « In lmititm

ton*, or } cbblt

yy,/^ Sunn lnnnils h< w the urn id q t Hi >n I he h n hop i r Inm
/uu fnni the M^crnn d« i rt re i mblt i vMitlund In nu nt (f sunt
in t< nn mlmr ind totim llu outlnu of tin li is di >,iii td b\ i fnlK Hi|
which is jnsscd unnst tlu b(dv, md it m\ thri it t lm it ii Iki/i
ind tin mknnu which nnjit oihi-i\Msi ni.it w u m tin Ki d out c t ijit

life's improbable likenesses

wings which are concealed when at rest. This is on a par
witl| the fact that a white actor playing Othello blacks only
his face and hands, and is what one would expect on a
selective interpretation.

In butterflies and moths, an adaptive transparency of the
wings has been produced in several quite different ways. In
•*he Hornet Clearwing hawk-moth, the scales are only loosely
attached, and fall off soon after the moth emerges from its
chrysalis; but in other cases the scales are much reduced
in number or in size, or are converted into thin hair-like
structures, or are set up on end so as to let the light pass
through.

The clearwing has an astonishing resemblance to a hornet,
not only in its general form and its transparent wings and
black-and-yellow colouration, but also in the way it flies,
and the fact that it flies by day instead of by night. The
resemblance not only deceives most human beings, but also
the creatures that would otherwise eat the moth. Lizards,
for instance, which have learnt the meaning of the yellow-
and-black danger-signals so common in nature, refuse clear-
wings equally with wasps and hornets. Indeed, as Cott has
shown in his fine book, Adaptive Colouration in Animals^
the experimental evidence for the biological value of warning
colouration and mimicry is now conclusive.

The diurnal habits of the Hornet Clearwing arc a reminder
fhat behaviour 4s well as structure or colouration usually
needs to be changed to secure an effective resemblance. Thus
the wonderful resemblance of the hawk-moth Xanthopan to
the bark of a tree, based on its general colour anA by the
dark lines that simulate cracks in the bark, would not be
achieved unless the creature always settled with its head
pointing vertically upwards. On the other hand, the equally
striking resemblance to bark of the Garden Carpet-Moth,
XanthorrhoB) depends on the animal settling horizontally.

Creatures that escape detection by their resemblance to
twigs spend all the daytime grasping a branch, immobile
and rigid, and only move about to feed when darkness falls.

Spiders that mimic ants walk and behave like ants as well
as looking like them (indeed one South American species
adds to the picture by walking around holding over itself the

145

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

dead body of a real ant, so that it looks like a worker ant
carrying a dead comrade); many insects which mimic sing-
ing models like bees and wasps curve their abdomen round
when seized, threatening their captor with a non-existent
sting.

Even the highest vertebrates, like birds, may have their
behaviour thus modified. The common nightjar escape^
detection while brooding by crouching immobile, and so
looking just like part of the floor of dead leaves on which its
nest is placed. But the South American nightjar Nyctibius
lays its eggs in the cavity of a broken stump; and the bird
broods in a strange unbirdlike posture, rigid and erect, with
eyes almost closed, in which it looks exactly like a continua-
tion of the stump. Even when not nesting, it roosts during
the daytime in this position, sometimes in full view on top
of a fence-post; and even then is practically invisible.

The most extraordinary of all such cases is that of a kind
of shrike, whose nestlings combine forces to produce a
deceptive likeness. If a potential enemy comes near the nest
while the parents are away, the nestlings all elongate them-
selves upwards, at the same time leaning together; the
group, "frozen" immobile in this position, looks like a
broken-ofF branch, the combined beaks simulating the
angular edge of the break.

There is only one other example of combined mimicry
known to me. When Professor Gregory, his journey to
the Rift Valley of Kenya, started to pick a specimen of a new
plant, all its flowers flew away! These flowers were really
Flatid -plant-bugs of one of the species of the genus
Phromnia, which have the instinct to perch in company
on upright stems. What is more, thejr come in two colours,
pink and green, so that the green ones look like buds and
the pink ones like opened flowers. Other Flatids also escape
detection by simulating flower-spikes, but this species has
adopted the added refinement of imitating both buds and
flowers.

Birds also afford examples of true mimicry. Thus the
inoffensive orioles of the Malay archipelago mimic what
Alfred Russel Wallace described as the "noisy and power-
ful" friar-birds of the region— each group of islands having

146

lifl's improbabll liken essls

The South American nightjar Nyctittus grtscus nests on the top of a stump,
out of reach of ground prowlers. To escape detection by other enemies, it
broods throughout the dav without moving, with its head pointing upwards,
when it looks exactly like the eontmuation of the stump

H7

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

a model and a mimic of identical appearance, the orioles
always developing a ruff or cowl of feathers like their mo/dels.
Though the black patches of bare skin round the friar-birds'
eyes are counterfeited by black. feathers in the orioles, the
resemblance is so close as to have taken in professional
ornithologists. The drongos of Central Africa are not only
bold and powerful, but their flesh is unpalatable; and they
are mimicked by several different kinds of birds — so success-
fully that when Swynnerton offered the mimics to his hungry
cat, they were decisively rejected.

However, the most interesting examples of mimicry in
birds concerns the eggs of cuckoos. As is well-known, some
cuckoos, like cowbirds, are reproductive parasites, laying
their eggs in the nests of other birds and leaving the young
to be brought up by the foster-parents. And the eggs of such
species are often extremely like those of the fosterer. Further-
more, when a species of cuckoo parasitizes a fosterer which
is much smaller than itself, it lays eggs much smaller than is
normal for a bird of its size, almost as small as those of the
fosterer. Finally, when, as in the common European cuckoo,
the species is divided into a number of strains, each parasit-
izing a different species of small bird, the eggs of the differ-
ent strains are different, and are usually close mimics of the
fosterer's eggs in colour and pattern as well as size. How-
ever, there are one or. two exceptions: for instance, the
Hedge-Sparrow lays pure blue eggs, but Hedge-Sparrofr
cuckoos lay spotted greyish eggs. That this is not due to an
inherent inability to produce blue eggs is shown by a strain
of cucIpoos in Northern* Europe, which lay unspotted blue
eggs in the nests of blue-egged birds like Wheatear and
Redstart.

To understand how these resemblances could have been
brought about, we will jump for a moment to the plant
kingdom. There is a variety (or possibly a distinct species)
of the plant Camelina which is round nowhere else but in
flax-fields. Its chief difference from its nearest wild relative
is its small seeds, which are of the same size as flax seeds.
Flax seed is harvested for sowing by sifting through a fine
sieve: and so the Camelina seeds pass through too and are
sown next year with the flax. What has happened is obvious.

148

life's improbable likenesses

Quite automatically, in each generation, the bigger Camelina
seeds were sifted out of the crop of flax seed, while the
smallest ones were sifted in — until finally only those strains
which produced small seeds were left, and the small-seeded
variety became a reproductive parasite of cultivated flax, or
it might be better to say a parasite of man, since it depends
8n man's agricultural labours.

+An the case of cuckoos, the sifting is done by the host
species, which is liable either to turn a strange egg out (or
to desert), if it is too unlike its own. Thus a strain of cuckoos
which lays smaller eggs will have a better chance of being
perpetuated, and so will one whose •eggs bear some re-
semblance to those of the host. However, different host
species vary in discrimination, and only when they are very
particular will selection see to it that the resemblance be-
comes really close. The Hedge-Sparrow is known to be highly
tolerant of strange objects in its nest: so here there was no
handle for selection to bring about a close resemblance.

In passing, though a defenceless mimi^: usually counter-
feits the visual appearance of a model, it may sometimes
imitate its sound. The rattling of the rattlesnake is an
auditory warning which serves to scare away animals that
might tread on it, as well as predators that might otherwise
eat it. And one quite harmless species of snake has de-
veloped a small tattle that serves the same function as the
counterfeit red, black, and white of the harmless False
Coral Snake, which imitates the warning colouration of the
highly poisonous true Coral Snake.

A great many snakes hiss by way of warning; an^quite a
number of harmless creatures make use of hissing to scare
their enemies by pretending that they are snakes. The most
curious exampje is that of the wryneck, a small European
bird related to the woodpeckers, and like them nesting in
holes. When an intruder tries to enter a wryneck's nest, the
sitting bird flattens itself against the side of the hole, then
presses up towards the enemy with a strangely snake-like
motion, and finally shoots back, emitting a completely snake-
like hiss. The first time I saw this performance, even though
I was prepared for it and was actually seeing the bird after
taking t|je lid off the nest-box in which she was brooding, it

149

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

was quite startling and indeed disconcerting: it must have
an overwhelming effect on a small egg-stealing mammAl in
the darkness of the bird's natural nest.

I shall come back to the imitation of snakes and other
reptiles: but meanwhile I must just mention a few others of
the more fantastic resemblances that natural selection has
brought about.

One of the best is the reversed butterfly trick. Some little
butterflies belonging to the family of the Blues, or Lyc&en-
idae, have "tails" on their hind-wings which, when the
creature is at rest, look like antennae, and are moved up and
down to increase thcresemblance. The angle of the wing is
scalloped out to look like a butterfly's head, and on it is a
conspicuous spot which simulates an eye. The real head with
the real eyes and antennae is practically hidden by a forward
curve of the fore-wings, and the underside of the wings bears
a pattern of stripes which forces attention on the sham head
by converging upon it. The biological reason for this
elaborate deception is of course to ensure that if a hungry
bird or lizard does find the butterfly, it should snap at the
wrong end. If so, all it is likely to get is a dusty mouthful of
scales, or possibly a dry bit of wing, while the insect flies
off little the worse.

Many butterflies, including a number of Blues, are known
to deflect the attack of their predators £y means of con-
spicuous tails or "eye"-spots near the hind edge of thefr
hind-wings, and the complete false head is merely an
elaboration built on this foundation.

Mos? of my examples "have had to do with the protection
of edible animals from attack: but of course similar devices
may be equally well employed by predators to help them
secure their prey. The most wonderful of such aggressive
deceivers are the flower-mantises and flower-spiders. These
are all brilliantly coloured, but are not conspicuous because
their colours match those of the flowers in which they sit all
day waiting for unwary insect visitors. There are many
different species of many colour-patterns, but the colour-
patterns have always been adjusted by natural selection to
the particular kind of flower that they frequent. For instance,
in Manila there is a beautiful white spider with yellow legs

150

life's improbable likenesses

which lies in wait in white lily flowers with yellow stamens.
Agiun, the Malayan flower-mantis Hymcnopus refuses to
take up its station except in the flower-clusters of a particular
kind of rhododendron, whjch it matches to perfection with
its colouration of pale pink and pearl white, with a dis-
ruptive band of leaf-green across its thorax. Of course, these
• Resemblances may, and generally do, have the second func-
tion of concealing the spider or mantis from its own numer-
ous enemies.

Sometimes the animal even constructs a background for
itself. Thus Azilia, a Guianan spider, sits in invisibility on a
little carpet of bits of bark and lichens that it has built in the
middle of its web.

The example of Camelina shows that seed-size can be
adjusted to that of another species by natural selection ; but
other plants have their whole visible appearance changed.
Lithops is a succulent plant, related to the Mesembryanthe-
mums, which lives in South- West Africa: and, like other
succulents of the same region, it is practically indistinguish-
able both in form and colouration from the stones and
pebbles of its desert habitat. (And so, by the way, are some
of the desert grasshoppers.)

But the most remarkable plant examples are to be found
among the orchids. The flowers of various smaller orchids
are so like insecte that the plants have been named after
Ae resemblanc^flike the Fly Orchid in Britain. Until quite
recently it was always suppobed that this was something
quite accidental, just a by-product of the general construc-
tion of orchid flowers, and of no biological advantage to the
plant. However, it has now been proved up to the hilt that
it is a device for securing cross-pollination. The flowers (or
rather the lips <jf the flowers) of each of these mimetic orchids
imitates the female of a particular species of insect, in appear-
ance and sometimes also in smell. The male insects are taken
in, and attempt to mate with the imitation females provided
by the orchid. In the process, pollen is transferred from one
flower to another, and the orchids are fertilized!

Archdeacon Paley in his celebrated Evidences of Christianity,
which was for so long a set book for all students at Cam-
bridge, maintained the thesis that all adaptations were evi-

151

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

dencesof deliberate design on the part of a Divine Designer.
I cannot help wondering what he would have said about
the Divine purpose behind the design of these bogus sexual
attractions, and whether perhaps Jie would not have welcomed
Darwin's great intuition, as having freed God from the re-
sponsibility for all the biological gadgets — some admirable,
some monstrous, and some just queer — that the automatitr
mechanism of natural selection has ground out during the
process of evolution. '

I have kept to the last some counterfeit faces to show that
even if Dorippe provides a unique case of an animal gaining
a biological advantage by mimicking a man, there are other
just as astonishing examples of a mimetic likeness to other
animals.

It is a well-known fact that an eye-spot has a powerful
psychological effect on animals as well as on people. Accord-
ingly we find eye-spots used over and over again to focus
attention on one part of the body, as on the wings of many
butterflies, or on the display plumage of various male birds.
But of course the effect can be strengthened and made more
terrifying when the eye is in a fierce face. The terrifying
effect of real eyes in a real face is utilized in the threatening
displays of many birds, like owls, and many mammals, like
baboons. In some of the latter, the horrifying effect is en-
hanced not only by the-ivory colour of tjje gums, revealed
as the creature bares its teeth, but by an ivory-white patch 6f
skin that it exposes above its eye. Quite often, however, the
same effect is achieved by sham eyes in a false face. Various
large n!l)th caterpillars, when alarmed, swell out the forepart
of their body into an imitation snake's head, bearing on its
sides two eye-spots which are concealed when the creature
is in its normal position. The imitation is sometimes very
close; but even a rough one, with the staring eye-spots and
the threatening movements of the animal, is quite frighten-
ing enough to repel most potential enemies.

The caterpillar of the puss-moth produces a false face in
quite a different way. It draws in and flattens its head in such
a way that it presents a mask-like surface adorned with two
little false eyes. The fact is not the face of any particular
animal, just a miniature vertebrate face. Meanwhile the

152

life's improbable likenesses

animal adds to its terrifying qualities by sticking up its
forked tail and protruding from it two waving scarlet threads.

However, one of the lantern-bugs of South America has
produced a complete sham t head whose resemblance to an
alligator is just as astonishing as that of Dorippe to a
Samurai. The counterfeit protrudes in front of the insect's
•ifial head. It is olive-brown in colour, with one protuberance
secying for counterfeit nose, a pair farther back for eyes. The
nosfe has a pair of black patches for nostrils, while the black
"eyes" are painted in complete with a white patch to imitate
light falling on the eyeball. Finally, there is a sham mouth,
complete with sham teeth, ivory-white and actually standing
out in relief! A marmoset or lizard which suddenly came upon
this apparition would certainly get a good fright, and would
not be likely to reflect that baby alligators would not be
likely to be crawling about in the foliage of trees.

The natural question to ask is how did such a resemblance
start? As with the Japanese crab, the answer is ready to
hand: there existed a prior structure wljich could fairly
easily be converted into the required resemblance. All the
members of one sub-family of lantern-bugs have a huge
hollow outgrowth on the front of their head. No one knows
what its primary function is: but it has the general shape of
a reptilian head, and needs only a little touching up to begin
looking like a fierce face.

• But the precision of the resemblance could quite certainly
not have been attained without the operation of natural
selection over many generations : the odds against anything
so detailed and so accurate being due to chance ^are as
astronomical as they would be against a monkey with a
typewriter producing a Shakespeare sonnet. And that holds
for Dorippe too*— if its resemblance to the medieval Japanese
idea of a savage warrior is mere accident, we can give up
trying to find any sense or order in nature.

However, the resemblance is quite certainly not acci-
dental, but brought about by natural selection, that blind,
surprising and potent force implicit in the very nature of life
itself. The results of natural selection demonstrate the un-
predictability and the amazing potentialities of nature.
Natural selection can only generate consequences of im-

*53

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

mediate biological utility: and yet over the generations it
produces results of almost infinite variety and fantastic
improbability — but still in the highest degree orderly, and
comprehensible by those willing to make the effort to
comprehend. The incredible resemblances which it brings
into being are reminders of the basic fact that nature is
miraculous — in the proper sense of the word, namely th3t'
it provokes our admiration and our wonder.

Nature is indeed orderly, but its order transcends 'our
most disorderly imaginations: that is the lesson to be learnt
from life's improbable resemblances.

*54

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

In Iceland, in the summer of 1949, a number of new facts
and experiences, interesting and exciting to a naturalist,
tame my way — some of them through my own eyes, others
thuqugh the mouths of the able Icelandic zoologists who put
so much of their time and knowledge at the disposition of
my companion James Fisher and myself.

Thus we saw various species that were new to us, and
sometimes spectacular, like the harlequin duck. That was
exciting enough; but the interest was multiplied when we
remembered that it is an essentially North American bird,
one of the rarest stragglers to Europe, and yet here breeding
close to familiar British ducks like mallard, tufted duck,
widgeon, and pintail. We found a meadow pipit breeding in
a wood, like a tree pipit, instead of on the customary open
heath; and what is more, singing a song halfway to a tree
pipit's. We saw some local birds recognizably different from
their British congeners, like the Iceland redshank, which is
several shades darker than ours. We saw a Painted Lady
butterfly in the northern half of the island — a truly astonish-
ing sight, since its nearest permanent breeding-place is the
south of France. W % c got evidence, from our own counts, of
the increase of thefgannet; and from our Icelandic colleagues
of the fact that not only it but nine or ten other birds of the
region have been rapidly extending their range northwards
during recent decades.

But the modern naturalist is not content unless he can
relate his facts, howeveu valuable, and his isolated experi-
ences, however exciting, to general principles; and the very
vividness and novelty of the impressions made by an un-
familiar country will set his scientific imagination to work.
Here is the result of my own case — some of the ways in
which Iceland's natural history illustrates or illuminates
'general evolutionary biology.

The most obvious point is the paucity of bird species in
general, and of song-birds and other passerines in particular.
Thus the .number of regular breeding species in Iceland is

' 155

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

only a little over a third of that in Britain ; but the number of
breeding passerines is less than one-eighth of the British.
In part this is due to the unfriendly climate and the barren-
ness of much of the island. Although Iceland barely touches
the Arctic Circle, real trees cannot grow except in two small
sheltered localities, and both vegetation and insect life have
much less luxuriance and variety than with us in Britafti,'
while the winter is such that very few species of bird coy.ld
possibly live through it. *

In Spitsbergen, farther poleward, we find a marked
further drop, both in the total and the passerine percentage.
The best way to bring this home is by means of a table :

Country

Britain

Iceland
Spitsbergen

Passerines

Latitude

Per cent,
of total

49 0 57— «j8 n 4o' (main-
land) ; 49" 51' — 6o°
$i # (with islands).
63 0 20'— 66 w 32'
76 0 26'— 8o° 50'

There is also the fact that Iceland is an island, and a fairly
remote one, lying over five hundred mile^from the Hebrides
(a little more from Cape Wrath, the nearest point of tVic
British mainland), and close on three hundred miles from
Faeroe. Admittedly the distance north-westward to the
Greerrfiand coast is under two hundred miles; but Greenland,
especially in these latitudes, is so forbidding that very few
species can have used it as a steppiwg-stone to Iceland.

Now remote islands invariably show a .fauna and flora
which is impoverished compared to that of the nearest main-
land. With birds this is mainly due to the difficulties presented
by a long sea passage, especially to small terrestrial species
or those with feeble flight. In addition, an island is likely
to have fewer kinds of habitats than a mainland area, and
this may cut down the number of species which can find a
permanent niche in its biological economy, even if they
manage to reach it.

156

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

It is difficult to say just what birds are lacking merely
because they have failed to overcome the sea barrier. Some
apparent candidates turn out, on reflection, to be ruled out
for other reasons. Thus the fyct that among the thrushes the
redwing breeds in Iceland and the fieldfare does not is not
so surprising when we remember how the fieldfare seems
hiuch more definitely wedded to tall trees to nest in, and (we
may presume at least partly for that reason) does not exist
so far north in Scandinavia as the redwing.

Then, with such a favourite as the meadow pipit to
parasitize, it is at first sight puzzling that there are no
cuckoos. The reason is the low densityof pipit population.
A cuckoo has to keep about a dozen fosterers' nests under
observation if it is to succeed in its parasitism, and this
would be impossible in Iceland.

The absence of the rock-dove seems also surprising — until
one remembers that the species seems to be dependent on
weed-seeds and other by-products of human cultivation.

But I do find it puzzling that the ring oyzel, which likes
rocky slopes and in Norway breeds as far north as the
North Cape, has not established itself; and still more so that
the dipper is absent, when its smaller relative, the wren, has
been breeding in Iceland so long that it has evolved into a
distinctive subspecies. Of course, the streams by which the
dipper lives would t be frozen over in winter, but part of the
dipper population of northern continental Europe migrates
southward in winter, and the same might readily have
occurred in Iceland, while the rest might have done what all
the Iceland wrens do, namely take to the seashore. AnU I am
pretty sure that if the house sparrow ever reached Reykjavik,
the capital of Iceland, it would flourish and multiply. The
greatest puzzle ss that posed by the Lapland bunting, which
breeds in Greenland and north of the Arctic Circle in Norway,
but not in Iceland, although it seems to traverse the island
regularly on passage 1

That for strong fliers the climate is the only obstacle is
shown by the fact that since the beginning of this century
the list of breeding species has been increased by nearly
10 per cent., undoubtedly owing to the amelioration of the
climate — ^ fact to which I shall return. Conversely, swallows

157

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

come to Iceland every summer (we saw some in the West-
mann Islands), as do willow warblers, but neither species
has yet been found breeding.

It seems that many species ,arc all the time sending out
scouts, so to speak, ipto areas where breeding is impossible
but on the chance that one day they can establish themselves
permanently. This seems a wasteful method, but natural

Distribution of land animals m the main zoo-geographical regions of the world

selection always involves wastage. The most striking ex-
ample is the Painted Lady butterfly {Vanessa cardui\ which
cannot reproduce itself regularly through the winter north
of southern France, but in most years sends out vast numbers
to Britain and other countries. The one we ourselves saw,
by Lake Myvatn, was nearly fifteen hundred miles outside
its permanent range.

Another interesting feature of broad geographical dis-
tribution is this — that Iceland is at the same time the
westernmost outpost of a number of Old World bird species
and the easternmost of some (but fewer) New World ones.

158 ■

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

Lake Myvatn is the area of maximum overlap between the
bird faunas of what zoologists call the Palearctic and Nearctic
regions, northern Eurasia and North America respectively.

Thus Iceland is the western limit of breeding range for
such Old World species as whooper swan, greylag goose,
snipe, golden plover, whimbrel, redwing, white wagtail (and
intleed the entire wagtail genus); but it is the eastern limit
foe those otherwise New World species, great northern

Breeding distribution of the Loon or Great Northern Diver

diver, Barrow's goldeneye, and harlequin duck. The ducks,
by the way, well illustrate the complexities of geographical
distribution — Iceland shows us not only several Old World
species at their western limit, like wigeon, teal, common
scoter, and tufted duck, and several New World ones at their
eastern limit, but also a number of circumpolar or Holarctic
species suGh as mallard, pintail, gadwall, and shoveller.

All the New World species which breed in Iceland are
hardy enough to inhabit parts of Greenland also. If the
Labrador Current did not cool the east coast of Greenland
and northern Canada so much below the temperature they

159

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

ought to enjoy by virtue of their latitude, and the Gulf
Stream did not warm Iceland and Spitsbergen and the north-
west coasts of Europe so much above it, the contribution
from the New World would presumably at least equal that
of the Old.

There is at least one plant in Iceland of New World origin.
The sea-rockets, Caki/e y are shore-dwelling crucifers with
lilac flowers. Two Icelandic botanists, Dr and Mrs Love,
have recently shown that the sea-rocket of Iceland does' not,
as has been generally assumed, belong to the species found
in Scandinavia and Britain, Cakile maritima^ but reveals
itself, both by its slightly different form and its doubled
chromosome-number — thirty-six instead of eighteen — as
the North American species, C. edentula. This holds also for
the sea-rocket of the Azores : the Loves' conclusion is that
the Gulf Stream has been responsible for the appearance of
the American sea-rocket in these otherwise Old World
islands, by transporting the seeds in its slow, warm drift.

At various times in the geological past there was a land
connection between the Old and the New Worlds across
what is now the Bering Strait, and probably also, though not
so often or so long, across the North Atlantic, along the line
still indicated by the submarine ridges between Greenland,
Iceland, Faeroe, and Shetland. The climate in the regions
connected by these land bridges was then less rigorous, and
there was more uniformity of animals and plants in the
Holarctic region than now. But isolation and time saw to it
that the inevitable differences were accentuated, and mean-
while die New World fauna received large additions from
the Central and South American region, which were very
different from the immigrants that, the northern Old World
received from Africa and south-western Asja. Thus eventu-
ally two quite distinct faunas and floras, the Palearctic and
the Nearctic, were differentiated — distinct, but with a
number of elements obviously of common origin, and with
a considerable number of species still shared by both and
therefore classed as Holarctic.

The greater isolation of the two regions to-day may
possibly be due not only to the breaking of the land bridges
between North America and the Old World, but to an

160

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

actual increase of the distance across the Atlantic, caused by
the slow drifting away of America from Europe. This was
postulated by Wegener in his theory of Continental Drift.
Iceland is well situated to test the theory. The position of
certain points should be determined with great accuracy, so
that after a lapse of years even a few yards' shift could be
defected. German scientists had begun on this project before

Breeding distribution of the Little Auk (arctic) and
the Gannet (north temperate)

World War II, and had set up a number of triangulation
points in Iceland. However, the Icelanders were so suspicious
that these might be camouflage for some military project
that they destroyed them all — another of the innumerable
minor casualties of modern war.

But there are other faunas represented in Iceland. An
important one is the North Atlantic fauna, mainly of course
'of marine creatures, but emerging into the air in the form of
a number of sea-birds which exist on both east and west
coasts of the North Atlantic, and on suitable islands in
between. Gannets, guillemots, razorbills, and puffins are
F 161

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

examples. This North Atlantic bird fauna seems to have
differentiated comparatively recently — perhaps as a result of
the drifting apart of northern America and northern Europe
— and consists of immigrant types from other regions —
from the Arctic, from the Pacific round Cape Horn, and
from the Indian Ocean.

Breeding distribution of the Great Skua

Finally — believe it or not! — the Antarctic fauna is repre-
sented in Iceland. The bonxie or great skua is merely a sub-
species of a dominant species widespread in the Antarctic
and sub-Antarctic regions. Many high-latitude birds migrate
to the other hemisphere after breeding; thus perpetually
avoiding winter. Our bonxies must be descended from some
southern hemisphere migrants which stayed to breed in their
off-season area— one cannot say "in their winter quarters".

Thus we have in this one island representatives of five
faunas — North Hemisphere Old World, North Hemisphere
New World, North Atlantic, circumpolar South Hemisphere,
and circumpolar North Hemisphere. This last includes
two subdivisions — the true arctic fauna, with such Iceland
birds as little auk and glaucous gull, and the sub-arctic
and north-temperate forms shared by New and Old Worlds,
such as wheatear, raven, mallard, and Slavonian grebe.

One of the interesting things that came to our attention
was the frequent distinctiveness of the local Iceland race or
subspecies of various species of birds. The Iceland wren is

162 ,

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

both larger and darker than ours in Britain, and the Iceland
redpoll is also larger than our British subspecies, the so-
called lesser redpoll, as well as having a recognizably differ-
ent call-note. The redpoll, by the way, is an example of an
Iceland bird which is smalf in size but yet is found in
Greenland and North America, as well as in the Old World,
so that it, like the wheatear, is Holarctic. But, unlike the
widely spreading ducks, both these small birds have broken
up into numerous well-marked subspecies. The wren is
curious in this respect. Although it has produced separate
and distinctive subspecies in Iceland, Faeroe, St Kilda, and
Shetland, it is uniform over the whole of .western and central
continental Europe. The separation of Britain from the
Continent has not resulted in the evolution of a British sub-
species, though this has happened with many other birds,
of which our pied wagtail, so easily distinguishable from the
continental white wagtail, is an example. Why this is so, is a
real puzzle.

The fact that the Iceland redpoll and wren are larger
in size than ours is an example of an interesting general rule
— that warm-blooded animals tend to be slightly larger the
•nearer they live to the pole; further, in mammals, the relative
size of ears, tail, and limbs tend to diminish — a phenomenon
strikingly illustrated by the tiny ears of the arctic fox as
compared with the huge flaps of the fennec fox from the
searching deserts. *rhese changes are undoubtedly adapta-
tions, working to reduce heat-loss in cold climates and to
promote it in over-hot ones.

Thus some of the special characters of Iceland bifds are
adaptations to climate, while others, like the colour of the
Iceland wren, seem to be non-adaptive consequences or
accidental results of isolation. But there is a third class of
difference, and perhaps the most interesting — difference in
behaviour and song. Some of these differences, like the
harsher song of the Iceland wren, are again aspects of the
distinctiveness of the local subspecies. Others seem to be
due to the birds being on the margin of their range, in sur-
roundings quite different from the normal. Thus, as already
mentioned, the Iceland wren out of the breeding season has
to become almost exclusively a shore-bird.

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Frequently, however, the reason is more subtle — the
absence of competition from close relatives which have not
reached this part of the species' range. Thus, in Britain,
snipe are inhabitants of open country, so that it was surpris-
ing to find them quite comm6n in the one of Iceland's two
woods that we visited. James Fisher hit on what I am sure is
the solution — namely that there are no woodcock in Iceland.
With us, woodcock occupy the habitat provided by boggy
woods. But where woodcock are absent, the snipe' avail
themselves of these as well as of their normal open habitats.

The absence of close relatives may have another effect.
When two closely .allied species come into contact in the
same area, it is generally a biological advantage for them to
proclaim their distinctiveness by some characteristic differ-
ence of plumage or voice. This will help to prevent actual
or attempted cross-breeding, trespassing, and other wastes of
time and energy. In Britain, the closely related meadow and
tree pipits are not only restricted to different habitats, but
sing quite distinctive songs. With us, the meadow pipit is
exclusively a bird of moors and heaths and other open
country, and its song is a rather feeble descending scale
gradually accelerated into a little trill, given as the bird
parachutes down after having flown up from the ground.
The tree pipit, on the other hand, demands scattered trees,
and has a much more striking song; this also is given in the
air while floating down, but the flight stirts from (and often
ends on) a high tree perch.

Here the need for distinctiveness cannot well be met by
plumage differences, since both species are adapted to con-
cealment by cryptic colouration; but the songs, given high
in the air, are obvious trade-marks for th'e species. In the
Iceland birchwood where we found snipe, there were also
meadow pipits. We would never have dreamt of finding
meadow pipits in such a place in England, and their presence
was clearly due to the absence of their close relative and
competitor, the tree pipit. What is more, the song of one of
them had a distinct tree pipit flavour, and it was begun from
a tree perch.

Finnur Gudmunsson told us that in western Iceland he
had once spent a couple of hours stalking the singer of a song

164

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

which was wholly unknown to him: he eventually shot it for
identification purposes— only to discover that it was an
ordinary meadow pipit! This, too, was in a birch area,
though the birches here were only scrub. Thus the relaxation
of the need for distinctiveness seems to have permitted the
song to change. The meadow pipits of open country in
Iceland have so far not been heard to give any intermediate
or % markedly abnormal song (though one we heard in the
Wesfmann Islands was exceptional for its brilliance). Pos-
sibly the woodland and scrubland birds are evolving into a
distinct ecological race.

There remains to mention one amusing incident. In this
same wood we found a redwing's nest quite high in a birch
tree. Now, in Iceland the redwing, that attractive little
thrush, is normally a confirmed ground-nester, though in
Norway it frequently builds in trees, and Dr Gudmunsson
was quite impressed by this unusual event. Then on Myvatn
we saw another tree nest, some eight feet up in a willow ; and
Dr Gudmunsson grew really excited — until Sigfinson, the
farmer-naturalist, reminded him that this had been the latest
season in living memory, and that the ground had been deep
"in snow when the breeding urge took the redwings. Seeing
that they thus so readily revert to ancestral habit under the
stress of necessity, it is rather curious that they do not
normally do so as^a matter of convenience wherever trees
or*bushes abound.

Finally, I come to what to me is the most interesting point
of all — the bearing of field natural history in Iceland upon
the fascinating and basic question of a world-wide change in
climate.

Professor Ahlmann, the well-known Swedish geographer,
has summarize^ the evidence on this subject in the Geo-
graphical Journal. He concludes that in the northern hemi-
sphere a widespread amelioration of climate, most extensive
in higher latitude, is in progress. It began about a hundred
years ago,. but has been especially marked in the last two
decades. The most likely explanation is that it is world-wide
and due to increased heat from the sun, which in its turn
operates by altering the world's great system of atmospheric
circulation.

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The evidence is of every sort — increased temperatures,
spectacular regression of glaciers, changes in the position of
main low-pressure and high-pressure areas, alterations in
rainfall and snowfall, desiccation in lower latitudes (includ-
ing the drying up of East African and South-East Russian
lakes), enormous shrinkage of the polar pack ice, enlarged
growth-rings of trees, and changes in the distribution cff
many animals and plants. 1 *

On this last point Iceland provides a great deal of evi-
dence, since it lies on the sensitive limit between sub-arctic
and arctic conditions. We know from historical records that
for over four hundred years the early colonists successfully
grew barley, but that soon after a.d. 1300 this became
impossible. To-day, to quote Ahlmann, "the present shrink-
age of the glaciers is exposing districts which were culti-
vated by the early medieval farmers but were subsequently
overridden by ice".

The ensuing cold spell of about six hundred years has
been called the Little Ice Age; it was the coldest period since
the retreat of the ice after the last major glacial period, while
the warmest period since the end of the Ice Age seems to
have been the few centuries just before our present era/
About 1880 the Iceland glaciers reached their maximum
extension for some ten thousand years.

As showing how sensitive animals jnay be as climatic
indicators, Finnur Gudfaiunsson told me that in the wahn
spell just before the Christian Era, the dog-whelk {Purpura)
was found all along the north and east coasts of Iceland,
while to-day it stops d£ad at the north-west and south-east
corners. (The slightly hardier whelk, Bucctnutn> still occurs
all round the island.)

To come down to the present, the last few decades have
seen drastic changes in the fish which are Iceland's prime
economic support. Herring, haddock, halibut, and especially
cod have extended their range northward in Greenland (the
cod at the rate of about twenty-four miles a year for over
thirty years); and cod and herring are moving north from

1 Thi9 was written in 1950. Dr. Dunbar, of the Arctic Institute in
Canada, telh me that in the last few years there is some indication that the
trend has passed its peak and that a reversal of the process may.be setting in.

166

NATURAL HISTORY IN ICELAND

•

Iceland, so that anxiety is beginning to be felt about the
future of the fisheries.

As a result of the amelioration of climate, there have been
extraordinary changes in the # bird population of the island.
No less than six species — nearly 10 per cent, of the previous
list of breeders — have only started to breed in Iceland during
the present century. There is the tufted duck, which arrived
in* 1 908, and has spread so fast that now it is the second
comrtionest species on Myvatn; three gulls — the black-
headed, herring, and lesser blackback; the coot and the
starling, both only after 1 940, the latter still confined to cliffs
near its presumed landfall in the south-east. Further, the
oystercatcher, previously confined to the south-west, has
a spectacular spread northward. The blacktailed godwit and
the gannet have also pushed up the northern limit of their
range, the latter having established three new colonies on the
north and east coasts.

Meanwhile, the little auk, the only truly arctic species in
Iceland, has entirely deserted one of its two breeding colonies
in the north-east, while the other has dwindled to almost
nothing; apparently Iceland seas are no longer cold enough
for it, or more probably, for the marine Crustacea on which
it mainly feeds its young. Some plants, too, are moving
north, notably the bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus\ which has
colonized areas previously reserved to dwarf willows; and
tHcre have been similar shifts in some of Iceland's insects.

All these changes have become much more pronounced
within the last ten to fifteen years.

We in Britain have had numerous'examples of bird species
spreading northward in the present century, including some
birds which have been doing the same thing in Iceland, like
the tufted duck^and others like the black redstart, which are
quite recent invaders of our islands.

All such observations take on new interest when it is
realized that they can contribute to our understanding of a
world-wide and secular change of immense significance for
our future; and one which is unique, since, in Ahlmann's
words, "It is the first fluctuation in the endless series of past
and future climatic variations in the history of the earth
which we # can measure, investigate, and possibly explain."

POPULATION AND HUMAN
FULFILMENT

Population is the problem of our age. The increase* of
population, and its relation to resources and to fulnessf of
life, inevitably obtrudes itself on anyone who, like myself,
happens to travel round the world in the middle of the
twentieth century. The traveller is struck by shcfcr numbers
as in China, high density as in Java, attempts to control
increase as in India, the effects of immigration as in Ceylon
or Fiji, large vacant spaces in Australia, and erosion, de-
forestation and destruction of wild life almost everywhere.
But the experiences of travel merely highlight and illustrate
in greater detail something that is already obtruding itself on
the world's consciousness — the fact that the increase of
human numbers # has initiated a new and critical phase in the
history of our species.

The most striking symbol of this new phase was the
United Nations' Conference on World Population, held in*
Rome in 1954 — a milestone in history, as being the first
occasion when the subject of human population was sur-
veyed as a whole, and under the aegis pf an official inter-
national organization. ' §

In point of fact, this was the second step into the new
phase. The first step had been taken in 1949, with the hold-
ing of f the U.N. Confefence on World Resources in Lake
Success — the first attempt to survey the .world's material
resources as a whole. When this. Conference was being
prepared, I was Director-General of Un^esco, which, in
common with other specialized Agencies of the U.N., such
as F.A.O. and W.H.O., was asked to collaborate in the
project. In formally accepting this invitation, I took it on
myself to suggest informally that a survey of resources
would lose half its value if it were not supplemented by
a similar survey of the population which consumed and
used the resources. I was told that there were political and
religious difficulties; then, as the months passecj, that the

168

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

169

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

demographic experts insisted on the mid-century censuses
first being held; and then that the figures would have to be
thoroughly analysed before such a conference could profit-
ably be held. Eventually the political and religious diffi-
culties were smoothed over, by Arranging that the Conference
should be purely "scientific" and should not be encouraged
or indeed permitted to pass any practical resolutions; the
mid-century censuses were, with a few exceptions, tak§n;
the figures were, sometimes with a good deal of delay,
assembled and analysed; the cumbersome preparations for
an international U.N. conference were set in njotion; and
the Conference was # duly held — after the lapse of five years,
during which time the population to be surveyed had
increased by about 30 millions !

To the Conference and its implications I shall return.
First I shall set forth some of the facts — often surprising
and sometimes alarming — which justify our calling the
present a new and decisive phase in human history. The
first fact is the enormous absolute size of the present popula-
tion of the world- 1 — over 2% billion. 1 The second is the amount
of its present net increase — some 34 million a year, nearly
4000 an hour, over 60 a minute, over one every second:*
this is equivalent to adding a good-sized town of over 90,000
people every day of the year. And the third fact is that the
total has been increasing steadily and relentlessly, with only
occasional and minor setbacks, since bfefore the dawn of
history. The 2-billion mark was not passed until the 1920s,
the 1 -billion mark in the mid-eighteenth century, the half-
billion f piark somewhere around the time of the Great Fire of
London (in 1650 it was about 470 million). Before this, the
estimates are much less accurate; but evfcn if we allow a
considerable margin of inaccuracy/the quarter-billion mark
cannot have been passed before the birth* of Christ, and
probably not before the third century a.d. The total cannot
possibly have reached 100 million before the collapse of the
Old Kingdom of Egypt, and probably not till much later,
about the beginning of the Iron Age: and in the pre-
agricultural stage of human development, before 6000 B.C.,
it must certainly have been below 30 million and probably
1 I use billion in the American sense of a thousand million- — io 9 .

170 m

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

2.200
Million

1950AD
1650 A.D

1000A.D

400A D|

1AXX\

6S0B.C.
WOOBCSi

• •••••

• •••••

• • •

• • •

540
Million

200
Million

Each dot represents
10 rhillion people

3500&Q

: l — rrr

1 100
-j Miljion

20
Million

Estimated increase of world population since the dawn of civilization

171

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

below 20. This was only some 8000 years ago, yet before
that time, man (though represented by different species from
our own for most of the period) had existed for at least half
a million years.

3000
2000

1000
500

300

</> 200

z

Q

^ 100

^

-f

y

6000 4000 2000 B C AD 2000

Estimated growth of world population since 6000 b.c.

Note. — The estimated growth is traced in this chart by the heavy curvL
The curves above and below it represent upper and lower limits of the
estimat&l. The population curve is on a semi-logarithmic scale, so that the
slope of the curve is directly proportional to the rate of increase.

The fourth and most formidable fact \s this — that not
only have the absolute numbers steadily grown, but the rate
of increase itself has continued to increase. Human numbers
are self-multiplying, so that population, as Malthus pointed
out in 1798, tends to grow not arithmetically but geometric-
ally: it tends to increase by compound interest. The present
compound interest rate of world population-increase is nearly
1 J per cent, per annum. But it never reached i per cent, per
annum until well into the present century. It was less than

172 €

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

•

o«5 per cent, in 1650, and cannot have exceeded / 0 of
1 per. cent, through all the ages before the discovery of
agriculture. What is more, this increase in rate of increase
shows no sign of falling off, and it is quite safe to prophesy

40.0O-.
3600"
2000- •

I000--
500-

200

§
#

1980
— +1

\K0.

400

800

1200

1600

1950

Rate of increase of world population since 1650 (semi-logarithmic scale)

that it will continue to go up for at least several decacfes, and
probably into the twenty-first century.

With this, the prospect becomes really alarming. Let us
first remember that, even if the rate of increase stayed the
same, the absolute net increase would still go up each year,
forobvious arithmetical reasons. 1 Population increase, in fact,

1 If the present world population be taken at 2600 million, and its rate of
increase at ij per cent., its absolute net increase in the course of the next 12
months will be 34$ millions. If the resultant 2634$ million people continue
to increase at the same rate, the net increase for the next twelve months will
be just over 35$ millions. Since the rate too is increasing, the actual net
increase wilLof course be still larger.

' 173

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

t

proceeds— or at least has in the past proceeded and is now
still proceeding — not at a constant velocity, but by accelera-
tion, and the result has been to convert an early state of
virtual stability into one of slo^but appreciable growth, then
into a rapid expansion, and finally into an explosive process.

The acceleration has not been constant. It has proceeded
in a series of upward steps, each step resulting from somfe
new discovery or invention. The essential discoveries ire
those which provide subsistence for more people. The'chief
stages in this process are broadly as follows. First, the food-
gathering stage, as typified by the Australian* aborigines
before contact with* white civilization. During this stage of
human evolution, the maximum world population could not
have exceeded a few millions. The invention of organized
hunting, as practised by Upper Paleolithic man or by the
Plains Indians in their pristine state, would have allowed
perhaps a doubling or trebling of maximum human num-
bers, though never any high density of population : the total
population of l^orth America east of the Rockies in pre-
Colonial times is estimated at only about one million. The
discovery of agriculture had a much bigger effect, and the
two or three millennia of the neolithic revolution were
marked by a great expansion in human numbers and by
great movements of peoples.

The next major step was the step tQ civilization, with
writing and large-scale 'organization of production, tracfe,
and administration, but still relying for its energy on man-
power and beast-power, with a little tapping of wind and
water. 'This permitted population to rise again, in spite of
constant wars, recurrent famines, and occasipnal world pesti-
lences such as the Black Death, to .over 500 millions.

Then came the second really radical step-r-the harnessing
of non-human power to human production, initiating the
industrial, scientific, and technological revolution of the
seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. This many-fold multi-
plication of power led to a spectacular multiplication of
human beings. World population doubled itself twice over
in the period between 1 650 and 1 920, and will have doubled
itself a third time by the early 1980s. Further, while the
first doubling took nearly two centuries, the secjond took

174 ■

^POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

well under one century, and the third will have required only
about. 60 years. Unless something wholly unforeseen hap-
pens, the world's present population will be doubled again
within half a century.

The excessively rapid acceleration during the present
century is due to yet another decisive set of discoveries — the
discoveries of physiology, scientific medicine, and hygiene,
whose result we may call death-control. Where these dis-
coveries have been fully applied, the expectation of life at
birth has more than doubled. This was only about 30 years
in Imperii Rome, and did not increase much even in
Western Europe until well on in the nineteenth century, but

Average length of life

if

viSm i2

40

n

NORTH AMERICA ASIA
AND BRITAIN

Average length of life in North America and Britain, and in Asia

is now about 70 for the people of Britain. The process is just
setting in in Asian countries. Thus in India the expectation
of life in the decade 191 1-2 1 was only 20: in three decades
it had increased to 32. Death-rafes dropped from their
traditional heights of 35 to 40 per 1000 to less than 10 per
1000 in the more advanced countries, with 7*7 in Holland
as the present lowest figure; and infant mortality, during the
first year of life, which may reach 30, 40, and even 50 per
cent, in primitive communities, has shown the most spec-
tacular fall, to 2-8 per cent, in the U.S.A., with a present
minimum of 1*9 per cent, in Sweden. Tn Britain it was still
over 15 per cent, in 1900, but is now only 2*75 per cent.

This differs from all the other previous major steps: it
permits people to escape death longer, ratherthan to support
life more efficiently.

• 175

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

9

In the Western world the change was gradual, and its
effects on population-growth were buffered by two, inter-
locking factors. The rising standard of life encouraged family
limitation, partly because of tfye parents' desire for the corn-
Rate a thousand population

401 *~

50"

Birth, death and natural increase rates in the United States of America

(1916-19151)

Note. — The figure shows a combination of a low and steady death-rate
with a t>irth-rate which declined by about 1935 to the low level normally
associated with western countries towards the end of their population cycle.
Then came the sharp increase which brought births up to the high rate of
twenty-four a thousand by 1947, since when it has remained roughly constant.
So high a birth-rate and therefore so high a natural inefcase is a new pheno-
menon in western countries which had apparently reached the end of their
population cycle.

forts and amenities of life (competition between children and
cars or TV sets), partly because of their desire that their
children should have the best possible chance in life, better
health and enjoyment as well as better education (competi-
tion between quantity of children and the quality of their

176 •

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

lives), and partly because in an urban or high-wage civiliza-
tion, children are no longer an economic asset.

Matters were very different in the under-developed
countries. There death-control was introduced with ex-
plosive speed. Ancient diseases were brought under control
or even totally abolished in the space of a few decades or
even a few years. Let me give one example. In England"
malaria took three centuries to disappear: in Ceylon it was
virtually wiped out fifty times as fast, in little more thart six
years, thanks to D.D.T. and a well-organized anti-malaria
campaign. As a result of this and other health measures, the
originally high death-rate has fallen to the Western level —
from 22 to 12 per iooo — in seven years, a fall which took
exactly ten times as long in England. But the birth-rate has
not even begun to drop, and so the population is growing at
the rate of 2*7 per cent, per annum (nearly twice the highest
rate ever experienced in Britain), which if continued will
mean doubling in thirty years — about a ninefold increase in
a century!

The Reverend Thomas Malthus, a century and a half ago,
alarmed the world by pointing out that population-increase
was pressing more and more insistently on food-supply, and
if unchecked would result in widespread misery and even
starvation. In recent times, even as late as the 1930s, it had
become customary to pooh-pooh Malthu^an fears. For one
thing, the opening up of new land to agriculture, couplecl
with the introduction of better agricultural methods, had
allowed food-production to keep up with population-increase,
and in 9 some areas even to outdistance it. For another,
attempts were being made to impugn the, whole basis of
Malthus' argument. It was pointed out that he was incorrect
in saying that food-production tended to increase in an
arithmetical progression, as against the geometrical pro-
gression of population-increase : food-production during the
nineteenth and early twentieth century did actually increase
in a more than arithmetical progression.

Now, however, we realize that the nineteenth-century
spurt in food-production was a temporary historical incident:
it cannot be expected to continue at the same rate, and indeed
must slow down as it approaches an inevitable lijnit; and

178

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

t

secondly that, though Malthus' particular formulation was
incorrect, there is a fundamental difference between the
increase of population, which is based on a geometrical or
compound-interest growth-mecfianism, and of production,
which is not.

In primitive societies, population-growth is kept low by
the checks of famine, disease, and war, which Malthus
floted, and by some form of "birth-control", in the extended
sense of deliberate control of population-size, which he did
not. It was reserved for Carr-Saunders in his pioneering
work, The Population Problem (1922), to demonstrate that
almost all savage and barbaric and some civilized societies
practise some form of population-control— either by infanti-
cide or abortion, or by anti-conceptional drugs or practices,
or by long periods of sexual abstinence. Only exceptionally,
in a few advanced cultures, has there been no socially recog-
nized system of population-control.

However, during the nineteenth century, artificial methods
of family limitation were widely practised in the technologic-
ally most advanced culture, that of Western civilization,
where they were invented, and from it are beginning to
spread to other cultures. With this, the population problem
has entered on a new phase. It is no longer primarily a race
between population and food-production, but between death-
control and birth- # control.

m Some cultures and groups go so far as to offer vehement
opposition to birth-control on ideological grounds. By a
strange irony of history, the Catholics and the Communists
find themselves united on this poifit. The Roman Catholic
Church lays down that birth-control is contrary to the will
of God, while Russian Communism during the Stalinist era
went further apd asserted that over-population is non-exist-
ent, a figment invented by the economist "lackeys" of capital-
ism to justify "imperialist" and "colonialist" exploitation I
On this last point, it is worth noting that the colonial
powers have, with few exceptions, avoided giving official
encouragement to birth-control measures even when, as in
Malta, they are already urgently needed, and still less in the
more numerous cases where failure to appfy them now will
result in, disastrous over-population in one or two genera-

179

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

I 80

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

tions. This attitude has apparently been due to a fear that
local opinion might regard any policy of population-control
as a weapon directed against an "inferior' ' race 1 .

The growth of world population is not uniform, for
different countries are in different stages of the population
cycle. The term population cycle is used by demographers to
•express the fact that populations usually pass through a
definite series of stages in their growth. They begin with a
"high fluctuating" stage of slow increase, when both birth-
rate and death-rate are high. Then they pass into the "early
expanding" phase of rapid increase, when the death-rate
falls sharply but the birth-rate stays uiorc or less steadily
high.This is succeeded bythc "late expanding "stage, during
which death-rates continue to fall towards a limiting value
and birth-rates show a rapid decline: the population con-
tinues to increase, but not so rapidly as in the preceding
stage. Finally, both birth- and death-rates reach a low figure
and show little further sharp variation. This introduces the
"low fluctuating" phase, when increase is still taking place,
but is very slow. Once this stage has been reached, we may
expect that the population will eventually reach a phase of
' stabilization unless new sources of food-production are dis-
covered, or new outlets are acquired through conquest or
colonization, or new ideas and values begin to operate.

The countries # of north-western Europe are in the low
fluctuating phase of near-stabilization, while the under-
developed countries have now almost all entered on the
early expanding stage, a number of them so explosively as
to be increasing at rates of 2 or even 3 per cent. per»annum,
whereas the maximum reached by Europe in its slower cycle
was less than \\ per .cent. When we remember that an
annual increase of 2 per cent, doubles a population in about
thirty-five years, and one of 1 \ per cent, in under forty-seven
years, and then recall that rates of this order are at work in
about half the world's i\ billion inhabitants, we cannot but
feel alarmed. If nothing is done to control this flood of

1 Since this passage was written, Family Planning Schemes have, I am
glad to say, been implemented in Jamaica and in Puerto 1 Rico, and the official
attitude towards population-control has become more favourable.

. 181

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

people, mankind will drown in its own increase, or, it you
prefer a very mixed metaphor, the world's economy will
burst at the seams, and mankind will become a planetary
cancer.

There are still some optimist? who proclaim that "science
will find a way out"; or that the situation can be taken care
of by taking new land into cultivation, combined with emi-«
gration; or by improved agricultural techniques; or by
tapping the food resources of the ocean; or by industriaJiza-
tion, which it is hoped will have the same effect as in the
advanced countries, of bringing down the birth-rate in
correlation with a rising standard of living— or of course by
a combination of some or all of these methods.

These arguments seem plausible — until we begin to look
at matters quantitatively. Then, it becomes painfully clear to
all but incurable or pathological optimists that they just
won't and can't achieve the results claimed for them — of
stimulating the rate of food-production so that it overtakes
or even keeps up with human reproduction. To achieve that
result, skill, capitdl, and time are needed — skilled experts to
direct projects, capital to finance them, and above all time —
time to clear tropical forests, construct huge dams and irriga-
tion projects, drain swamps, start large-scale industrialization,
give training in scientific methods, modernize systems of
land tenure, and, most difficult of all, to change traditional
habits and attitudes among the bulk of the people. Quitfc
simply there is not enough skill and capital and time avail-
able. Their effects will always lag behind the increase of
population. Population is always catching up and outstrip-
ping production. Since, for instance, the great Lloyd Barrage
on the Indus was built, it has brought over 4000 square
miles of the earth's surface into cultivation : but within one
generation this huge area of new land was fully settled,
without in the slightest reducing the density of population
in the rest of the Indian sub-continent.

The fact is that an annual increase of 34 million mouths
to be fed needs more new food than can possibly go on being
added to production year after year. Population-increase
to-day has reached such enormous dimensions and acquired
such speed that population cannot help winning in a straight

182 '

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

race Against production. The position is made worse by the
fact that the race is not a straight one. Production is severely
handicapped, because it starts far behind scratch : according
to the latest estimates of the World Health Organization,
nearly two-thirds of the world's people are under-nourished.
Production has to make good this huge deficiency as well as
keeping up with the mere quantitative increase in human
numbers.

Is, there then no remedy? Of course there is. The remedy
is to stop thinking in terms of a race, and to begin thinking

PRE-WAR RECENT PCST-WAW
( PERCENT OF TOT/ 1 TO P ULATIOn /

OVER 3,700 CALORIES. SpOO-ajOO CALORIES. UNDER 2,200 CALOfttS.

Distribution of world population according to average daily supply of calories

•

in terms of a balance. We need a population policy, and any
practical policy involves a pattern of rational compromise.

We must give up the false belief that an increase in the
number of hurAan beings is necessarily desirable; and the
despairing belief that increase is inevitable; and the fatuous
over-optimism that shuts its eyes to the grievous effects of
over-population; and the airy assertion that "science" will
surely find a way out.

The production of people, like the production of food, is a
fact of nature, using nature comprehensively as it should be
used, to include human nature. Like other natural pheno-

183

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

•

mena, both can be studied, understood, and to some extent
controlled, though by different methods. Put in another way,
if science can and should be applied to increase the rate of
food-production, it can and should also be applied to reduce
the rate of population-growth or people-production. And
for that, as for all scientific advance, we need both basic
fesearch and practical application.

' In this particular case, basic research is needed not only
on ntfw, simpler, and more efficient methods of birth-control,
but also on the psychological attitudes of different nations
and groups to population-control and family limitation, as
well as of course on the precise details of«demographic trends
in different sections of the world. And practical application
will involve measures for overcoming psychological resist-
ances and ensuring popular participation, and for the building
of proper administrative machinery and information services,
as well as for providing a quantitatively adequate supply of
technically adequate contraceptives. But the essential step
is to admit the pressing need for a clear-cut and scientific
population policy: once this is agreed, the rest will surely
follow.

This does not mean that we should envisage a definite
optimum population-size for a given country or for the
world as a whole. Indeed, to fix such a figure is probably
impossible, and to,usc it as a definite target is certainly un-
practical. In matters of population we must get away from
static figures of absolute number and think dynamically in
terms of rates and trends. For the time being our aim should
be confined to correcting undcsiraMe trends. The danger-
point of human increase lies in the next thirty or forty years.
If nothing is done to brjng down its rate during that time,
the succeeding period will be exposed to disastrous miseries
and charged with the high explosive of billionfold frustra-
tion. Thus our particular present aim should be to discover
how to reduce over-rapid rates of population-growth. If we
can do this, our descendants can begin thinking of a more
or less stable level of population.

So far, I have only considered this relation between people
and food, and only in its simplest quantitative form. But
over-population — or, not to beg any questions, high popula-

• l8 5

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

tion-density — affects a great many other spheres of human
life, some of which have repercussions on food-production.
Thus, to take this last point first, in England agricultural
land is being steadily devoured and permanently lost by the
growth of towns, of necessary communications — roads,
railroads, and aerodromes — of new large-scale industry, and,
temporarily at least, by open-cast mining and defence. In
many countries, deforestation, even when carried out to
provide new land for cultivation, often results in erosion,
with an eventual reduction of food-production instead of
the hoped-for increase. Wherever population outruns food —
as it does now in the billion-and-a-half of the world's popula-
tion who are undernourished — it reduces human energy and
initiative and so impedes higher productivity.

But man does not live by bread alone, nor should he live
for bread alone. He needs power and shelter and clothing,
and in addition to all material requirements he needs space
and beauty, sport and recreation, interest and enjoyment.

Excessive population can erode all these things. Up till
now, rapid population-increase has led to hypertrophied
cities, so big that they are beginning to defeat their own ends;
they are producing discomfort, inefficiency and nervous'
strain as well as cutting off millions of people from any real
contact or sense of unity with nature.

Population-increase also threatens the .world's open spaces
and the beauty of unspoilt nature. In small countries with
high population-density, like England, the pressure on
mere space is becoming acute. But even in newer and less
densely inhabited countries the process of erosion and
destruction is going on, often at an alarming rate. Every-
where, even in Africa, wild life — not merely big game, but
wild life in general — is shrinking and often being exter-
minated : the world's mountains are being invaded by hydro-
electric projects, its forests cut down or commercialized, its
wildernesses infiltrated by farmers and miners and tourists
and other invaders. Even the cultural richness of the world
is being impoverished. The pressure of population is being
translated into economic and social pressures, which are
forcing mass-pfoduced goods into every corner of the globe,
pushing people into Western dress and Western habits,

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

sapping ancient cultural ideals and destroying traditional
art and craftsmanship.

Indeed, once we start looking at the population problem
as a whole and in all its implications, we find ourselves being
pressed into a reconsideration of human values in general.
First of all we must reject the idea that mere quantity of
human beings is of value apart from the quality of their lives.
Then, after realizing that all existence is a process of trans-
formation or evolution, that the human species in its cultural
evolution is continuing and extending the process of bio-
logical evohition from which it arose> that the well-rounded
and developed human personality is the highest product of
the evolutionary process of which we have any knowledge,
but that the human individual cannot achieve full develop-
ment except in the environment provided by an adequate
society, we find ourselves inevitably driven to the ideal
of fulfilment — greater fulfilment for more fully developed
human individuals.

Accordingly, the values we must pursue^are those which
permit or promote greater human fulfilment. Food and
health, energy and leisure are its necessary bases: its value-
9 goals are knowledge and interest, beauty and emotional
expression, inner integration and outer participation, enjoy-
ment and a sense of significance. In practice these values
often come into competition and even conflict ; so to achieve
greater fulfilment we need a pattern of compromise and
mutual adjustment between values.

The space and the resources of our planet are limited.
Some we must set aside for the satisfaction of man's ntaterial
needs — for food, raw materials, and energy. But we must
set aside others for more ultimate satisfactions — the enjoy-
ment of unspoilt nature and fine scenery, the interest of wild
life, travel, satisfying recreation, beauty in place of ugliness
in human building, and the preservation of the variety of
human culture and of monuments of ancient grandeur.

In practice this means limiting the use to which some
. areas are put. You cannot use ploughed fields to land air-
craft on, you cannot grow crops in builtover areas, you
cannot permit exploitation or unrestricted "development" in
National Parks or nature sanctuaries. In the long run, you

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

cannot avoid paying the price for an unrestricted growth of
human numbers: and that price is ruinous.

It is often asserted that science can have no concern with
values. On the contrary, in all fields of Social Science, and
(in rather a different way) wherever the applications of
Natural Science touch social affairs and affect human living,
science must take account of values, or it will not be doing
its job satisfactorily. The population problem makes this
obvious. As soon as we recall that population is merely a
collective term for aggregations of living human beings,
we find ourselves thinking about relations between quantity
and quality — quantity of the human beings in the popula-
tion and quality of the lives they lead: in other words, values.

Though I may seem to have painted the picture of world
population in gloomy colours, there is hope. Just as the
horrible destructiveness of atomic warfare is now prompt-
ing a reconsideration of warfare in general, and seems likely
to lead to the abandonment of all-out war as an instru-
ment of national policy, so I would predict that the threat
of over-population to human values like health, standard
of living, and amenity will prompt a reconsideration of
values in general and lead eventually to a new value-system
for human living. But time is of the essence of the contract.
If before the end of the century the rate of human increase
is not lowered, instead of continuing to rise, so many values
will have been damaged or destroyed that it will be difficiht
to re-create them, let alone to build a new and better system.
It has taken ten years for the atomic threat to affect world
thought and action: how long will it take for the less
spectacular but more insidious reproductive threat to do so?

So far I have been dealing with the problem of world
population in general. Now I shall take some individual
cases, as illustrating particular aspects of it.

Let me begin with Indonesia. The outstanding fact is
the extraordinary difference between different parts of the
Republic. Java is the most densely populated l?rge island
in the world, with over 50 million people on its 50,000
square miles. In spite of its being almost entirely an agri-
cultural country, the denaity of its population is nearly twice
that of the highly industrialized United Kingdom. Though

188

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

its area is under a tenth of the whole Republic, it carries over
two-thirds of the population. The contrast with the adjacent
island of Sumatra is especially striking. Sumatra is well over
three times the area of Java, but Has a population well under
a fifth as big, giving a density of less than one-seventeenth.
Indonesian Borneo is even larger in area, and has an even
lower population-density.

• In Java, the cultivable land is very fertile, but there is less
than two-fifths of an acre per head. Though rice is the staple
diet, so much land is devoted to exportable products that
rice has to.be imported to feed the people, even at the in-
sufficient level of about 2000 calories* per head per day.
Death-rates have dropped somewhat in recent decades, but
birth-rates hardly at all, with the result that the population —
universally recognized as already excessive — is increasing
at a compound-interest rate of at least per cent., with
some three-quarters of a million people added each year.
The proximity of large under-populated areas like Sumatra
and Borneo has fostered the idea that Java's over-population
could be solved by transfers of people within the Republic.
But this facile suggestion has proved to be quite impractical.

• With considerable difficulty, the Indonesian authorities have
settled a number of Javanese in Sumatra. But their total was
only a fraction of Java's annual increase, and even so, many
of the settlers could not stand the hardships of pioneering
agriculture and have drifted away into a depressed urban life
on the coasts of Sumatra, or found a way to return to Java.
The fact is that to convert a region of dense equatorial forest
to agricultural production is a formidable undertaking,
demanding as much capital and technological skill as any
large hydro-electric or irrigation project — and considerably
more in the way of experts, administrators, and leaders.
Indonesia simply does not have the necessary financial,
material, and human resources.

This is not to say that settlement should not be attempted.
Of course it should be, and on the largest possible scale. But

.the largest possible scale cannot possibly cope with more
than a small part of Java's annual surplus of people. Im-
proved agricultural practice is also necessary, and better
marketing methods, and some degree of industrialization,

189

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

not to mention political stability — but, in addition, birth-
control. Unfortunately there is no sign yet that the Indo-
nesian Government recognizes this last necessity.

If the necessity for birth-control has not been officially
recognized where over-popula'cion is starkly obvious, as in
Java, it has naturally not been recognized in islands like
Bali, where population-density is only a little more than half
that of Java (though even so it exceeds 500 per square mile).
The Balinese too live mainly on rice, grown on the lovely
rice-terraces which add so much to the island's beauty. The
planting and harvesting of the rice is a community affair,
carried out under careful regulation and to the accompani-
ment of shared rituals and ceremonies. Bali still just about
fee4s itself : but if population continues to grow at its present
high rate, it will seriously outstrip food-production in two
or at most three generations.

Bali provides an extreme illustration of another problem
stemming from the general expansion of world population —
the erosion of cultural variety. The Balinese have a rich and
vital cultural tradition, in which beauty and significant
participation are part of everyday living. Every aspect of
life is marked by some celebration or embellished with some'
form of decoration. Every Balinese participates in some form
of creative activity — music, dance, drama, carving, painting,
or decoration. What is more, the tradition is not rigid, and
the culture is a living and growing one,' in which local ahd
individual initiative are constantly introducing novelty and
fresh variety.

Bufc the Balinese are afflicted with many preventable
diseases: they are largely illiterate (though far from un-
cultured); their religion is now being undermined by the
Christian missionaries who have at last been allowed to work
in Bali; growing economic pressure forces them to take
advantage of the flood of cheap mass-produced goods,
originating from Western technology, to which they are now
being exposed; their mounting population demands some
adaptation to modern industrial life if living standards are
to be raised or even maintained; and this in turn is imposing
a Westernized* scientifically based system of compulsory
education.

190

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

Most foreign residents prophesy that Bali's vital culture
is doomed, and will wither and die within ten or fifteen years.
This may be over-gloomy, but certainly Balinese culture is
in danger, and will die out or be ddbased by bastard western-
ization unless something is cfone to check its decline. The
question is what, and how? I can only hope that the Indon-
esian Government will realize the value, to their own country
and to the world, of this rich product of the centuries, and
that Unesco will justify the C in its name — C for Culture —
and do all in its power to help. No one wants to keep the
Balinese ina state of ill-health and ignorance: but instead of
being pushed by the well-meaning but ijl-considered efforts
of over-zealous missionaries and administrators and "scienti-
fic" experts to believe that their traditional culture is a
symbol of backwardness, to be sacrificed on the twin altars
of Christian doctrine and technological advance, they could
be encouraged in the truer and profounder belief in the
essential validity of their indigenous arts and ceremonials,
and helped in the task of adapting them to modern standards.
A traditional culture, like a wild species of Animal or plant,
is a living thing. If it is destroyed, the world is the poorer;
'nor can it ever be artificially re-created. But being alive, it
can evolve to meet new conditions. It is an urgent but a
sadly neglected task of the present age to discover the means
whereby the flowerings of culture shall not be extinguished
by the advances olf science and technique, but shall co-
operate with them in the general enrichment of life. And in
coping with this task we must not forget that population-
increase can make it more difficult, by forcing people tathink
more of how merely to keep alive, less of how to live.

The situation of Siam ; or Thailand as it is now officially
called, is in some ways not unlike that of Bali. It is not yet
over-populated; it is in the fortunate position of producing
enough rice not only to feed its own people but to export a
considerable amount to less fortunate countries. Its people
are well feyd and look cheerful. The general impression of
happiness is in strong contrast with the depressing atmosphere
of much of Indian life (though the stimulating feeling of
devoted national effort and scientific leadership is also absent).
Thailand is proud of its past, and especially of the fact that

. l 9 l

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

it alone of South-East Asian countries has never lost its inde-
pendence. There is a traditional culture in which the bulk of
the people are content to find fulfilment, though there is not
so much active participation or artistic creativeness as in
Bali.

Thailand is crowded with various foreign organizations
and agencies, international and national, which are giving
advice and assistance on every possible subject — health and
agriculture, democracy and scientific development; ad-
ministration and industry, education and fish-ponds and
rural community life. As a result, the traditional culture is
being eroded or undercut. Food-production is beginning to
go up and death-rates to fall; but unless birth-rates also
fall, Thailand will lose her happy distinction among Asian
countries and will become seriously over-populated well
before the end of the century.

A partial remedy would seem to lie in the better co-
ordination of the various departments of Government and
the motley collection of foreign agencies, and the framing
of a comprehehsive plan which would take account of
population and traditional culture as well as of food-produc-
tion and industry, science and education.

Fiji is another group of islands with another problem. Its
population of about a third of a million is made up of two
separate populations, which at present are about equal in
numbers — the indigenous Fijians and the immigrant Indians
— together with a handful of Europeans, Chinese and others.

The history of the two populations is instructive. The
impact of white intrusion caused, or at least was correlated
with, a decline in Fijian numbers. These must have been
nearly 200,000 in 1850, but only about 150,000 when the
islands were taken over by the British in 1 874. A succession
of epidemics, beginning with measles, which in 1875 killed
40,000 people, and going on through whooping cough,
influenza, dengue, and cerebro-spinal meningitis, steadily
reduced the population, which numbered 1 1 5,000 at the
first census in 1 88 1, to a low point well under 100,000. The
health measures introduced by an alarmed administration
then began to take effect. In the first decade of the twentieth
century the decline was reversed, and a slow increase set in

192

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

which, in spite of a bad setback from the Spanish Flu at the
end of World War I, has continued to bring the Fijian
population up to its present figure of around 140,000.

Indian immigration started in 1 879, and has continued
to the present day; but now ne&rly 90 per cent, of Indians in
Fiji are native-born, and their rate of increase has gone up to
a figure well above that of the Fijians. As a result the Indian
population outstripped the Fijian during World War II,
and isjiow over 1 50,000. If there is no change in the trends,
Indians will in the space of two or three generations con-
stitute a large majority of the islands' people.

The two groups are very different in cujtural background,
interests, and work-habits as well as in physique. The
Fijians have the finest physique I have ever seen : they make
good soldiers and wonderful athletes. But their athletic and
war-like propensities have induced no very great keenness
for Western education, and a definite dislike of regular
agricultural work. As the economy of Fiji depends primarily
on its sugar crop, labour for the sugar plantations had to be
found: and the Indians have provided it. They make ex-
cellent labourers and small farmers and traders, and have a
•Rotable thirst for education. Deeming the Government's
educational provisions inadequate, they have even started
secondary schools on their own initiative and at their own
expense.

*There is little intermarriage between the two groups, and
indeed little liking. The Indians tend to regard the Fijians
as barbarian and backward, while the Fijians (who still take
a sneaking pride in their cannibal past) find the Indians
effeminate and affect to despise their laborious way of life.
However, there are now signs of a rapprochement, and some
of the younger Fijians are realizing that they must change
their attitude to 'work and to education if the Fijian com-
munity is not to lapse into a sort of living fossil, cushioned
by the protective measures of the colonial government.

The fact, of rapid Indian increase has had various reper-
.cussions. It has largely contributed to bring about this new
Fijian attitude. And once this new attitude is realized in
practice, and the Fijians accept Western standards more
whole-heartedly, their death-rate is bound to fall and their

G 193

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

numbers to jump rapidly up. Since the Indian rate of in-
crease shows no signs of falling, a demographic crisis looms
ahead: Fiji will become over-populated within the lifetime
of its younger inhabitants. This appears inevitable — unless
something is done about it, something in the way of intro-
ducing the people, Fijians and Indians alike, to the necessity
and desirability of family limitation, and of providing birth-
control facilities as an integral part of the health services. We
can only hope that too much economic distress and* social
misery will not be required to force the action that present
intelligent foresight could undertake — and couldnow under-
take with much le$$ difficulty than when the cohorts of the
yet unborn have swelled the population to disastrous
proportions.

Australia is a storm-centre of demographic controversy.
She is an entire continent (albeit the smallest of the seven),
with an area of close on 3 million square miles — almost the
size of the U.S.A. and nearly i\ times that of India — but
with only 9 million human inhabitants.

In spite of this low density of population — a mere three
people to the square mile — she is committed to a White
Australia policy, and admits no Asians or Africans (or I
presume Amerindians) as immigrants. Yet she is on Asia's
back doorstep. Australia lies only a few hundred miles
from the eastern outposts of Indonesia, less than a thousand
from its grossly over-populated heartland of Java, which has
to carry six times Australia's number of people on a sixtieth
of its area; and the three great swarming countries of Asia
— India, China, and Japan — have for decades been casting
longing eyes on Australian space as a possible outlet for
their surplus people : if the Axis Powers had won the war,
large-scale settlements of Japanese would undoubtedly have
been imposed on Australia.

However, Australia's open spaces are, from the point of
view of human occupation, largely a mirage. Most of them
are destined to remain indefinitely open, demographic blanks
on the world's map. Three-quarters of Australia is desert with
under ten inches of rain a year, or semi-desert with under
twenty. And even this pittance of rainfall cannot be counted
on : it comes in cycles. Again and again settlers have hope-

194.

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

fully taken up marginal land, only to have their hopes dashed
by a succession of rainless years at the low point of the cycle.

At the present time, only i\ per cent, of the land surface is
being cultivated. It is true that Big irrigation schemes are
being planned, and that the discovery that much poor land
could be enriched by adding trace elements is heartening the
farmers and vine-growers and pastoralists. But heavy addi-
tions of fertilizers would also be needed, and these, like
irrigation schemes, are expensive.

Never is a big word : but it looks as if much of the land
can never be brought into cultivation. Either there is no
water at all for irrigation ; or the only water available is salty;
or the soil is lateritic or otherwise wretched and wholly
unworkable. I was driven down from Darwin to AJice
Springs, three days and a thousand miles — a thousand miles
of increasingly sparse bush on increasingly stony and barren
soil, miserable and for the most part quite intractable to
human effort. The best estimates put 7$ per cent, as the
maximum area of Australia's surface which can be brought
into cultivation, and even to achieve this will demand great
effort and great expense.

Australia is under-populated, in the double sense that it
could support a larger population, and that a larger popula-
tion would benefit its economy. How much larger is the
question. Some say 50 million more people; but this seems
\fcry over-optimistic. A total of 25 or at most 30 million
seems more reasonable. And this would absorb less than one
year's increase of Asia's population, less than five years' of
that of India alone.

Furthermore, though the Australian Government recog-
nizes that Australia is t under-populated, and encourages
immigration by assisted passages and settlement schemes,
the country is fiard put to it to cope with the problem of
keeping up living standards in face of the present rate of
population-growth. This, when immigration is added to
natural increase, is one of the highest in the world — some
2^ per cent, per annum; and living standards can only be
maintained if considerable capital and energy is diverted
into industry and the exploitation of mineral wealth. Thus
as soon as the problem is looked at not in the static terms of

195

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

existing population-density and production but in terms of
relative rates of change, the idea of Australia as an outlet for
the spillover of Asia becomes chimerical. The highest rate
of human absorption possible without jeopardizing economic
health could not take care of more than a tiny fraction of
Asia's annual increase.

The White Australian policy remains as an affront to
Asian sentiment. But this too has strong arguments in its
favour. Certainly it cannot and should not be justified on
racial grounds. There is no such thing as radical or per-
manent racial superiority or inferiority: all races and ethnic
groups are capabler of a high level of development and of
participating effectively in human progress.

IJut it can be justified on cultural grounds. It is an
empirical fact that cultural differences can create grave
difficulties in national development. They often do so when
cultural and racial differences are combined. A large minority
group which clings to its own standards and its own cultural
and racial distinctiveness inevitably stands in the way of
national unity and creates all sorts of social, political, and
economic frictions. And if it multiplies faster than the rest of
the population, the problem is aggravated, as we have seen"
in Fiji.

It is probably true that the introduction of brown, yellow,
or black labour would, in the short run c give a boost to the
exploitation of Australia's hot tropical northern areas. Bilt
in the long run it would almost certainly result in complica-
tions and difficulties which would far outweigh its immediate
advantages.

It should be put on record that there is little colour
prejudice in Australia. The watchword for the aborigines,
the only non-white permanent inhabitants 9f the continent,
is now assimilation — a policy of gradually incorporating the
blackfellows into the country's social and economic life.
Under the Colombo Plan, and similar international schemes,
Australia is now not only admitting a number of Asians as
students or trainees, but giving them the best of oppor-
tunities and a very friendly welcome. What Australia seeks
to guard against is the creation of permanent racial-cultural
minorities.

196

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Resources and their consumption are the obverse of the
population problem* Like population, consumption shows
alarming differentials as between different regions and
nations. Even in food thbse are serious enough. The daily
calorie intake of some countries, like Ireland, with 3500 per
head, or the U.S.A., is more than double that of others, like
Indias with only 1590. And these figures are of course only

Energy used yearly Real Yearly Income

per head north America p& head

& & (& & t? A®&©&®@
£ & <s & M

BRITAIN
ASIA

Each symbol is the ^ Each symbol is the

energy got in practice ft O equivalent of £50

from i Urn of coal + JB

Annual consumption of energy and annual income in North America,
Britain and Asia.

c

averages : the under-privileged groups of the under-privi-
leged countries will have a much lower intake, the over-
privileged classes of the favoured countries a much higher
one, giving nearly a fourfold instead of a twofold range.

When we come to other resources, the contrasts are far
more startling. The Paley Report found that "the quantity
of most metals and mineral fuels used in the United States
since the First World War exceeds the total use throughout
the entire world in all of history preceding 1918". The U.S.
consumes 80 times more iron per capita than India, while

198 .

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

in the field of energy the per capita consumption of the
United States is double that of Britain qnd more than twenty
times 'that of India. To-day, space-heating in the U.S.A.
consumes one-third of all the world's oil ; another third goes
for motor transport and othe# internal-combustion engines;
leaving the remaining third for the needs of the rest of the
civilized world. The fantastic disparity between countries
can further be visualized by recalling that to produce the
Sunday edition of the New York Times alone during one year
one must cut down a forest roughly the size of Staffordshire.

As facts, like these seep into the world's consciousness,
they affect the world's conscience. Sucji inequalities, once
brought into the open, appear intolerable. The underprivi-
leged are feeling an increasingly strong sense of injustice,
while the over-privileged are beginning to experience a sense
of shame. This guilty feeling finds a partial outlet in the
various international schemes for Technical Assistance and
Aid to under-developed countries. But these schemes are
not nearly bold or big enough. We need a World Develop-
ment Plan on a scale at least tenfold greatef than all existing
schemes put together, a joint enterprise in which all nations
would feel they were participating and working towards a
common goal. To achieve even the roughest of justice for
all peoples, the favoured nations of the world will have not
merely to cough up a fraction of their surpluses but volun-
tarily to sacrifice some of their high standard of living; and
to qualify for aid and indeed for membership of the inter-
national development club, under-developed countries would
have not only to pledge themselves to hard and intelligent
work, but also to be willing to restrict their populations
by initiating effective policies of birth-control and family
planning.

Nothing short of this will ensure a reasonable and
enduring balance between population and resources, and
transform the present atmosphere of frustration into one of
fulfilment.

Since the end of the war, a small but hopeful beginning
has been made. A new phenomenon has occurred in the
world's history: the first official policies of population-
control have been launched. What is more, they are not the

. x 99

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

desperate gestures of small countries helplessly seeking
relief from overcrowding, but the deliberate instruments of
two large and powerful nations, India and Japan.

Japan I was unable to visit, but its demographic plight
is so extreme and so illuminating that I will take it first. It
is not only over-populated, but technically highly developed.
It is an island country, with 90 million people crowded into
an area only one and a half times as great as that of Britain,
and so mountainous that there is only one-seventh of qn acre
of cultivable land per head. And its population is increasing
by over 1 per cent, per annum, so that within, ten years it
will easily overshoe* the 100 million mark.

The Japanese are not well-nourished: the average daily
calorie intake is only 2000. They have, however, developed
agricultural methods so efficiently that the rice yield per acre
(rice is of course their staple food) is far the highest in Asia.
Yet in spite of these two facts, they have to import a fifth of
their food, and there is no prospect of their substantially
increasing their rice yields further.

The war has lost them their empire, and robbed them of
their hopes of new outlets for settlement or emigration,
while the fact that China has become Communist has, for -
the time being at least, deprived Japan of its biggest market.
It is only through United States aid that post-war Japan
has been able to secure enough food to live and enough fuel
to keep its industrial economy active. As' the P.E.P. Report
on World Population and Resources says, "Japan is un-
doubtedly the most over-populated great country there has
ever bjeen." ,

In his Human Fertility, Robert C. Cook states the fourfold
possibilities before Japan: (1) continued and increasing
subsidization by the U.S. or other foreign powers; (2)
immensely increased industrial and commercial develop-
ment; (3) drastic population control; (4) a miracle. Both
miracles and indefinite foreign aid are, to say the least of it,
highly improbable, and an increase of industry and trade
sufficient by itself to take care of population-increase is
quantitatively impossible. So the Japanese Government have
embarked on a £rm policy of population-control. There are
only three ways of limiting population — by destroying the

200

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

40 Rate a thousand ■
population I

Birth, death and natural increase rates in Japan, 1920-19 5 3
Note, — From 1920 till the early 1940s, birth- and death-rates irregularly
declined with a wide gap between them, resulting in a large natural increase.
In 1945 the war came to an end following the explosion of the first atom bombs
and Japan was plunged in confusion. The death-rate rose sharply and became
higher than the birth-rate, which decreased abruptly. Thereafter death-rates
fell sharply, reaching a figure below nine a thousand in 1953. At the same
time the birth-rate briefly shot up to the level of the early twenties, when the
rate of natural increase exceeded 2 per cent a year. Later it fell Sharply.
O* 201

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

life of children after birth, of embryos and foetuses before
birth, or of gametes before conception: in other words,
infanticide, abortion, and conception-control. In Japan,
infanticide persisted later than in any other civilized country,
for it continued to be widely practised up till some eighty
years ago, when it was dropped under the influence of the
new policies of imperialism and population-expansion. These,-
however, eventually brought not only disaster but a violent
aggravation of the demographic problem, through th/s en-
forced repatriation of 5 million people from the mainland of
Asia after the war. Faced with this desperate situation, the
Government took desperate measures. To implement a con-
trary policy of self-sufficiency and population-control, it
turned to abortion. In 1948, under the euphemistically titled
"Eugenics Protection Law", termination of pregnancy was
legalized and indeed encouraged. As a result, the number of
induced abortions rose from a quarter of a million in 1 949 to
well over a million in 1953. As was to be expected, the
results on the health of Japanese women were serious and
often deplorable— and yet the annual percentage rate of
population-increase has not even been reduced to the pre-
war level.

With these stark facts in mind, in 1 954 the Japanese Min-
ister of Health's Institute of Population Problems passed a
strong resolution urging Government encouragement of
conception-control, with widespread propaganda and the
provision of birth-control facilities as part of the Health
Services, as well as ample research and the inclusion of
family .planning in the medical curriculum, and with the duty
of medical men who have induced an abortion to provide the
woman with information about birth-control. There are no
recommendations for a family welfare service as in India;
and in the following resolution — "in relation to wage pay-
ments as well as the taxation system, measures should be
taken to avoid provisions which may be interpreted as encour-
aging large families" — the Council seem even to suggest the
penalisation of couples who produce too many children.

Drastic though these recommendations are, they or some-
thing very like •them are necessary, and it is much to be
hoped that they will be speedily and thoroughly imple-

202

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

mented. If not, within a very brief space of time Japan will
have been pushed into a state of explosive misery and frus-
tration. If, on the contrary, they are successfully put into
practice, they may not only savS Japan from disaster but
will provide valuable lessons *for other countries.

India's problem is rather different. The demographic
situation is not so desperate (though if nothing is done to
remedy it, it will become desperate within a few decades).

%

( _ - Rate a thousand _
IOO. population |

eo.

60.

40

90.

DEATHS ^ J

» i i i I i i » I i I i I
IM0 1190 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940

Estimated annual birth- and death-rates in India, 1 881-1946

Note. — Until about 1900 birth- and death-rates fluctuated above and around
40 a thousand. Shortly after 1900 the birth-rate assumed an ascendency which,
with the exception of a short period about 19 19 during which death-rates
soared into a sharp peak, has been maintained since. The peak in death-rates
was caused by the pandemic of influenza, and was accompanied by a decline
in the birth-rate. In the mid-thirties the birth-rate began to fall slightly, the
decrease becoming temporarily more pronounced in the early forties.*

Then India is not a small and insular country, but the best
part of a sub-continent, with large. resources waiting to be
developed. Here again, however, complacent optimism is
out of place : it is difficult to see how enough new capital and
new skill .could be made available fast enough to overtake
existing population-increase and raise the general standard
of living. Yet without this, there will be no automatic fall of
the birth-rate, and the inexorable pressure of population will
continue.

203

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Again, India's rate of increase is not notably high. It is
only just under per cent, per annum, which is lower than
that in the U.S. (which is i-6 per cent., excluding immigra-
tion). But there is an immense amount of leeway to make up
before the barest minimum 6f decent living is achieved.
The average daily calorie intake is a mere 1590, and at least
two-thirds of India's 380 million people are under-nourished.
Methods of cultivation and systems of land tenure afe
primitive and will need a painful and difficult process of
improvement before they begin to satisfy modern require-
ments. Tradition, ignorance, and illiteracy are grave obstacles
to progress; and so are superstitions like the sanctity of
cows, unjust social systems like caste, and ancient habits like
child marriage and the ban on the remarriage of widows.

There is relatively little land which can fruitfully be
brought into cultivation, even with the aid of large-scale
emigration projects, and the outlets for emigration (which
at the best of times could take care only of a small fraction
of population-increase) are being steadily restricted. De-
forestation has brought about a vicious spiral of decreasing
fertility, through forcing the use of cow-dung as fuel, and
so progressively robbing the soil of necessary ingredients.
The influence of Gandhi's hostility to mechanization, though
diminishing in face of obvious necessity, is still making itself
felt. •

Above all, the mere size of the problem is formidable.
Even at the present rather modest rate, 5 million people are
added each year: the net increase of India's population in the
last decennial period between censuses was greater than the
total population of Great Britain.

The size of this human flood was forcibly brought home
to me by the Kumbh Mela, which I visited in 1 954. The
Kumbh Mela is a religious festival held at the junction of
the two great rivers, the Jumna and the Ganges, at Allaha-
bad. The assembled pilgrims acquire merit and salvation by
bathing in the sacred waters. Every twelfth year, the festival
is especially sacred: and the Kumbh Mela of 1954 was
uniquely important as being the first of these twelfth-year
high points to occur after India's independence.

Pilgrims had come from all over the sub-continent — some

204

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

•

walking hundreds of miles on foot, a few by plane or car,
other§ by bullock-carts, others in convergent streams of
special trains. The festival lasts for a couple of weeks, and
anyone dying there during this period is believed to obtain
great advantages in the latei* progress of his soul. But one
day is especially holy, and to bathe on that day especially
efficacious. Allahabad has not much more than a quarter of
a 'million inhabitants: yet when we visited it, there were z\
million pilgrims encamped on the flats by the river, and
three days later, on the great day of the festival, the number
had grownpto 4 J million! Such quantities, though all drawn
from one nation, dwarf the international gatherings of
Rome's Holy Year or Islam's Mecca, and make the most
famous pilgrimages of earlier centuries, like Compostel\a or
Canterbury, seem small indeed.

I shall never forget the spectacle of this enormous transi-
tory human ant-heap, with its local condensation of crowds
converging on to the temporary pontoon bridges over the
Jumna to reach the sacred bathing-grounds. Crowds of this
magnitude made a frightening and elemental impression:
they seemed so impersonal and so uncontrollable. This
impression was all too well justified by the shocking events
of three days later, when the crowd got out of hand and
trampled four hundred of its helpless individual members
to death. %

However, I must return from this visible manifestation
of quantity to the statistical reality behind it. I have said
that the net annual increase of India's population is about
five million. But the potential increase is far greater? India
is still in the early expanding stage of the population cycle.
According to the latest available figures the birth-rate is high
— about 40 per. 1 000, well over double that of north-western
European countries — and shows few signs of dropping; and
though the death-rate has begun to fall (it is now about 27
per 1000) it has a long way to go yet before it approaches
the level of advanced countries. The point is, however, that
it has begun to fall, and is certain to fall considerably further
in the next few decades, thanks to the policy of the Ministry
of Health. A recent official report concluded that the adop-
tion of quite elementary health measures, such as are well

205

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

within the reach of an energetic Health Ministry, could
save another 3 million lives a year. This, if nothing is done
to control births, would bring India's net annual increase
of population up to 8 million — roughly the equivalent of

Calcutta was another manifestation of India's mere bulk.
The hypertrophic overgrowth of cities has been a constant
accompaniment of the growth of population: the hyper-
trophy of Calcutta has been exceptionally rapid and severe.
In 1 90 1 the population of greater Calcutta was under 1
million: in 1941 it was about 2f million: to-dtfy it is over
5 million. In spite of the notorious overcrowding of its
appalling slums, at night the pavements are strewn with
people who have nowhere else to sleep — just how many,
nobody seems to know, but probably near 100,000 — and
are forced to share the streets with the miserable roaming
cattle. I shall always remember, as I drove thrdugh the
busiest part of the city on the evening of my first day there,
seeing a man and a cow approach a traffic refuge in a busy
street from opposite angles, and compose themselves for
the night on either side of the policeman directing the traffic.
This urban hypertrophy was temporarily accentuated by '
floods of refugees after partition : but it will continue as long
as over-population sends poor landless villagers crowding
into the city in search of work. ,

The Government of the new, independent India born in
1 947 showed a refreshing courage in grasping this formid-
able nettle. Recognizing that superabundance of people was
one of the major obstacles to Indian prosperity and Indian
progress, they made the control of population a major plank
in their first Five Year Plan. The Census Commissioner of
India, in his report on the 1951 census, put the problem
starkly in quantitative tferms. Efforts to keep pace with the
existing rate of population-growth by increasing food-pro-
duction were bound to fail, he said, when the population
passed 450 million (which with existing trends will happen
in less than fourteen years). If, however, India could "reduce
the incidence of improvident maternity to about 5 per cent",
an increase of i\ million tons a year in agricultural produc-
tion would be sufficient to feed the people and bring "a

206

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

visible reduction of human suffering and promotion of
human happiness".

Population-control was assigned to the Health Ministry,
which set up a representative and quite strong Committee
to advise the Minister (who,* improbably enough, was and is
a woman and a Christian). Some valuable work is being
•done. Thus this last year grants were made for research on
new contraceptives and on the effectiveness and acceptability
of existing ones; for the study of demographic problems
such as the relation of high birth- and death-rates to social
and economic conditions; for the establishment of a training
centre for workers in the field of family. planning and mater-
nal and child welfare; for educating public opinion about
family planning and the need for population-control ; and to
help the existing family planning ventures of State govern-
ments and voluntary organizations.

It is -encouraging that a great country like India should
make population-control part of its national policy. But it
must be confessed that the effects are as yet small, and that
to the outside observer the execution of* the policy seems
somewhat half-hearted.

Let me take an example. The one large-scale experiment
initiated by the Government itself has been a pilot study of
the so-called rhythm method of birth-control or conception-
avoidance, carriecj out at the Government's request by the
World Health Organization. The Roman Catholic authori-
ties, realizing that some means of family limitation are
essential, but committed to the doctrinal thesis that ordinary
birth-control methods are immoral because they involve the
destruction of life and are allegedly "unnatural", have sanc-
tioned the rhytftm method as being "natural", since it takes
advantage of .the fact of human nature that women are
infertile during part of each monthly period. (In paren-
thesis, the method does involve just as much destruction of
life as any other, since the man's living spermatozoa are all
doomed .to die, and the woman's living ovum will perish
unfertilized.) However, there is so much variation in the
"safe period", both between individuals and between the
period of one individual, that it is notoriously unreliable.

I had # the opportunity when in India of visiting the chief

207

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

centre of the project near Mysore (there was a second in
Delhi), and or a long talk with the capable and attractive
woman in charge, a Negro social scientist from the U.S.A.
The results were interesting. In the first place, the encour-
aging fact emerged that whefi the situation was properly
explained, about three-quarters of the married people in the
vill lage said they would like to learn some method of limiting
their families — though in many cases their marriage partner
said no. Then came the staff's task of discovering the^indi-
vidual cycles of the women who wanted to learn, and then
the women's task of practising the method. To facilitate this,
each woman was given a kind of rosary, with the number of
beads equal to the number of days of her usual cycle, and
different-coloured beads for "safe days" and "baby days".

A number of women managed to avoid pregnancy during
the ten months of the experiment. The social scientist in
charge thought about 20 per cent, of Indian villagers might
learn to practice the method successfully: but this was a
maximum, and in any widespread campaign the figure is
more likely to be 15 or 10 per cent. Thus the general result
of the study was what could have been expected — that the
natural irregularities of the cycle, combined with the prac-
tical difficulties of adjusting sexual behaviour to the rhythm,
conspired to make the method quite inadequate as sole or
main means of population-control.

Methods used in Western countries are difficult to apply
in India, partly because of the cost of appliances and
materials, partly because of the lack of privacy and hygienic
facilities in the vast majority of Indian homes. In addition,
there is the persistent influence of Gandhi. Gandhi, as he
narrates in his autobiography, indulged excessively in sexual
pleasure after his marriage: indeed he considers that he was
only enabled to continue his intellectual development by the
abstinence enforced on him by the custom which sends the
young Indian bride to her parents' home for a considerable
part of each year. As a result of his self-disgust at his own
indulgence, coupled with his general dislike of anything he
considered as scientific materialism, he pronounced against
all mechanical or chemical methods or birth-control, and
solemnly recommended abstinence as the cure for India's

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

popufation problem. In spite of the obvious absurdity of
believing that this could possibly bq effective, Gandhi's
prestige is still so great that his views still influence those of
many people, notably by stiffenihg their resistance to the
official use of normal methods of birth-control.

The ideal solution would be the discovery of what laymen
(to the annoyance of scientific and medical experts) persist
in calling "The Pill" — something cheap and harmless which
whenfaken by mouth will temporarily prevent conception —
either by preventing ovulation or perhaps by rendering the
ovum unfertilizable. A number of promising substances are
being investigated, including some extracts of plants used
by primitive peoples. But so far nothing satisfactory has
emerged: one substance turns out to be an early aborti-
facient, others have unpleasant side-effects, or are not fully
reliable.

However, our knowledge of reproductive physiology on
the one hand and of biochemistry on the other has been so
enormously increased in the last few decades that I would bet
heavily that a solution can be found. But vft must work for
it. It is no good relying on isolated or casual researches: a
large-scale concerted programme is necessary, as it was for
the atom bomb. If we were willing to devote to discovering
how to control human reproduction a tenth of the money
and scientific brain-power that we did to discovering how
to release atomic energy, I would prophesy that we would
have the answer within ten years, certainly within a genera-
tion.

But I must return to India, One of the facts that prompted
the Government to undertake the task of reducing popula-
tion-increase was the ghastly recurrence of famine — not
merely chronic under-nourishment or even hunger, but real
famine, in which tens of thousands of human beings die of
starvation. The last great Indian famine occurred quite
recently, in 1952, when the rains had failed for two or three
years over, wide areas, and a major tragedy was only averted
by large-scale importations and gifts of wheat and other
foodstuffs. While modern rapidity and efficiency of dis-
tribution can thus alleviate local starvation, famines will
continue to recur in India so long as population is not

209

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

f

brought down into reasonable balance with food-production.

The Government have made heroic efforts to increase
food-production, and for the first time in modern history
India has recently had a surplus of home-grown food. But,
perhaps unfortunately, this his only been made possible by
two good seasons of abundant rain : when the climatic cycle
brings the bad years round again, as it inevitably will, fotfd
will again fail, and hunger once more stalk the land. The
long-term prospect is blacker: if population goes on increas-
ing by 5 or more millions a year, food-production cannot
possibly continue catching up with the mouths to be fed.

Meanwhile the -Indian Government are devoting more
and more attention to industrializing the country, both by
way of small-scale village industries and large-scale techno-
logical projects. They apparently consider that industry will
be able not only to absorb much of the surplus population
from the land but also to raise the general standard-serf living.
However, while industrialization is highly desirable, it is
chimerical to suppose that it alone can cope with the prob-
lem. A radical reduction in the rate of population-increase
is also necessary. Money and energy spent on birth-control,
through the provision of free advice and free contraceptives,
backed up by intensive propaganda, would be a better in-
vestment than a corresponding sum devoted solely to pro-
moting industrialization.

One simple administrative change would be of great value
— the creation of a separate Ministry of Population. So long
as population problems are assigned to the Ministry of
Health, as at present, they will be regarded as a subsidiary
nuisance, hindering rather than helping the Ministry in its
main enormous task of creating a healthier India. Although
over-population of course creates its own .problems of ill-
health, and although * family planning and birth-control
services are best operated as part of a comprehensive Health
Service, population and health demand very different ap-
proaches : furthermore, to make population-control the prime
task of a separate Ministry would be a spur to ministerial
ambition and departmental zeal.

In conclusion, let me return to where I began — the world
situation. As I emphasized before, the crux of the problem

210

POPULATION AND HUMAN FULFILMENT

lies in establishing a satisfactory balance between the world's
resources and the population which consumes or uses the
resources.

The resources consumed fall 'under two main heads —
agricultural and non-agricultural. Food is the prime agri-
cultural resource, but fibres and wood are also necessary, and
their production often competes with food-growing. Non-
agricultural resources include mineral and other inorganic
raw rpaterials on the one hand, and energy sources on the
other.

The careful survey made by P.E.P. discusses the pros-
pects of the world's main resources in .some detail for the
next twenty-five years, and in more tentative fashion up to
the year 2000. For the many interesting specific points, I
must refer my readers to the P.E.P. Report. Meanwhile I
quote its broad summary of the situation: First, "there is no
need to* take account of the probable rapid increase of
population to predict a world food-deficiency : one of appal-
ling magnitude already exists". The general conclusion is
"that, considered simply on a global basis, the requirements
of energy, minerals, and raw materials can probably be met
[during the coming twenty-five years], but that supplying
the necessary foodstuffs to feed the expected newcomers and
also to bring about substantial and lasting improvement in
the position of the^many millions now underfed is likely to
prove exceedingly difficult and increasingly precarious.
Several economic difficulties, notably in capital formation,
must also be expected." For energy resources, the prospect
continues reasonably bright up to the end of the century,
but for food it appears increasingly gloomy, though the
difficulties of accurate forecasting are greater.

This forecast it must be repeated, applies only to global
consumption. Actually, of course, individual countries differ
enormously both in productivity and in consumption, as
well as in rates of population-increase, and there are many
obstacles to easy diffusion of any surplus resources to where
they are most needed. Accordingly, when we take regional
and local differences into account, the situation appears more
serious and the prospect much blacker. •

I have already mentioned the almost grotesque differ-
ed 1 1

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

ences in consumption that exist between various countries.
The exaggerated consumption by a few favoured nations of
such resources as oil, newsprint, and various important
minerals show little sign bf decreasing, while for food, the
general trend at present is '^making the distinction even
greater between the well-nourished and the under-nourished
regions of the world". The rise in domestic living standard's
in food-exporting countries is reducing the amount of food
they have available for export, for instance of n^at in
Argentina.

Everything points to one conclusion. While every effort
must be made to increase food-production, to facilitate dis-
tribution, to conserve all conservable resources, and to
shame the have nations to a fairer sharing of the good things
of the world with the have-nots, these alone cannot prevent
disaster. Birth-control is also necessary, on a world scale
and as soon as possible. •

The portentous threat of atomic warfare has brought
humanity to its senses and the Big Four to Geneva, and
opened up the pfospect of a world without major war. It has
been so horrible and so urgent that it has overshadowed the
equally portentous threat of over-population. If the political
detente persists, population problems could begin to receive
the attention they deserve. Their urgency might again bring
the leaders of the peoples together, and open up the prospect
of a world without major over-population.

But time presses. New year will add nearly 34 million
people to humanity's total, and certainly for two or three
decades to come, each successive year will add more. If
nothing is done soon, world over-population will be a fact
well before the end of the century..

It has taken just one decade from Hiroshijna for the world
to face up resolutely to«the implications of atomic war: can
we hope that it will take no more than a decade from last
year's World Population Conference in Rome for the world
to face up equally resolutely to the implications of over-
population?

212

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT
LOVE?

Th e opening scene of that glorious satire, Of Thee I Sing,
reveals a party caucus with an admirable presidential
candidate but no ideas. They accordingly ask the hotel
chambermaid, as representative of the People, what most
people aro most interested in, and are unhesitatingly
answered "Love". And so love becomes the chief plank in
their platform.

The first thing we know about love is what the chamber-
maid's answer implied — that for most people it is the most
absorbing and interesting subject in existence. (In 1954 the
Russian^ at the Second Congress of Soviet Writers, officially
rediscovered this important social fact.) Love can send young
people eloping to Gretna Green, break up families, reduce
strong men to love-sick slaves, even lead to'murder or make
kings lose their thrones; it can also energize human lives,
induce the writing of a great deal of verse, including some of
the finest poetry, induce states of ecstasy otherwise unattain-
able by the great majority of men and women, and provide
the substance for most of our emotional dreaming.

This statement needs two qualifications. While it applies
to contemporary Western peoples and doubtless to many
others, it is not true for all cultures : sometimes war or hunt-
ing may take first place. Secondly, love as a plank in the
chambermaid's personal platform and as an engrossing
subject of popular interest means only one kind of love — the
romantic sexual # kind, the fact of "being in love".

It is almost impossible to give a formal definition of any-
thing so complex and general as love. All I can do is to
indicate some of the range of meanings comprised in this
one little jvord. There is mother-love and self-love, father-
love and grandmother-love, and children's love for their
parents; there is brotherly love (which gave Philadelphia its
name) and love of one's country; there is being in love, and
.making love; one can say that a man loves his food, though

213

NEW BOTTLES POR NEW WINE

good manners dictates that he should not say it himself
(when I as a small boy said I would love some chicken, my
great-aunt rebuked me with the Victorian rhyme "You may
love a screeching owl; you may not love a roasted fowl").

Many poeple love dancing*; there are music-lovers, art-
lovers, sport-lovers, dog-lovers, bird-lovers, sun-lovers,
mountain-lovers; most of us have an intense and deep--
rooted love of the surroundings in which we grew up;
ministers assure us that God loves us and insist that we
should love God, while Jesus adjured us to love our enemies ;
and there is love of money and love of power. . .

All these are legitimate and normal usage : in its compre-
hensive sense, love clearly includes all of them. But equally
clearly, the love in which one can be or into which one can
fall is for most of us somehow pre-eminent over all other
kinds.

Being in love is a special case of love as a general human
capacity. It is love at its most intense, and love personally
focused and directed in a very special way. Our common
speech reflects this fact. We talk of falling in love, as if it was
something outside us, into which we are precipitated sud-
denly, accidentally and against our will, like falling into a
pond. We say that X is infatuated with Y, or bewitched by

suddenness and the sense of compulsion in the symbol of
Cupid the blind archer, whose arrows inflict a magic wound
on our emotional being.

Love at first sight (though of course not universal or
indeed usual) is a frequent occurrence, surprising as a fact
for scientific consideration as well as to those who experience
it. But even when we are in love .with someone we have
known for months or years, the actual falj/ng in love has
been often, perhaps usually, not a gradual process but a
sudden moment. Being in love, whether we fall suddenly or
grow gradually into it, always has an element of compulsion,
a sense of being possessed by some extraneous and magical
power. Lovers are obsessed by an image of the loved one, to
whom they ascribe every virtue and merit. Outside observers
of the phenomeaon speak of the lover's madness; and love is
proverbially blind.

Classical mythology expressed the

214

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

The lover experiences a sense of heightened vitality and
finds a new significance in life. Mere contemplation of the
beloved becomes a wellspring of the highest enjoyment. The
lover seeks the presence of the be'loved. Merely to see her
(or him) from a distance is to feast the soul as well as the
eyes; and to touch her is an inspiring bliss. But when,
tlwough two hands and two pairs of eyes, the two souls can
interpenetrate, an even more magical state is achieved, as
described in Donne's poem The Ecstasy.

. . » Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm which thence did spring;

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string. . . .

As 'twixt two equal armies Fate
» Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls — which to advance their state
Were gone out — hung 'twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,

We like sepulchral statues lay;
All day the same our postures were,

And we said nothing, all the day.

Modern psychology has rightly abandoned the term soul,
because of the philosophical and theological implications
that have become attached to it; but we can translate it as
meaning the unitary inner core of our conscious selves and
this sense of the going out of our essential being and of its
interpenetrating br uniting with another being is one of the
hall-marks of Being in love.

This is embodied in one of the loveliest epigrams of the
Greek Anthology :

Tjjv ifivxr)v 'Ayadwva <f>iXwv ini xeiXeatv eaxov
VjXde yap T) rX^fuuv co? Sia/fyao/icwj.

As I kissed Agathon, I had my soul in my lips; for the rash creature
came thither as if to pass across.

215

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

For true lovers, the act of physical union is actuated not
merely or indeed mainly by the desire for pleasure but for
the transcendent sense of total union which it can' bring.
William Blake rightly rebukes the puritans who

Call a shame and sin
Love's temple that God dwelleth in . . .
And render that a lawless thing
On which the soul expands its wing.

And Robert Bridges reminds us how the lower is necessarily
incorporated in the higher: —

c

We see Spiritual, Mental and Animal
. To be gradations merged together in growth, . . .
. . . And that the animal pleasure
Runneth throughout all graces heartening all energies.

Even children may fall in sudden love, long before
puberty and its hormones have actuated the full sexual urge.
The classical ekample is Dante, who ' fell in love with
Beatrice when she was just eight and he nearly nine. In his
Vita Nuova — The New Life — he has left an immortal
description of the event which coloured all his later exist-
ence. "At that instant, the spirit of life which dwells in the
heart's most secret chamber began to tremble so violently
that all the pulses of my body shook; and in trembling it
said these words : 'Here is a god stronger than I, who is come
to rule over me.' "

Ha only saw her a fe^y more times, and she died at the
age of twenty-five. But his love dominated the rest of his
life, and inspired his great work. The distinction between
love and sex is very obvious here. Dante reserved his fullest
and highest love for a w^oman whose hand he had never even
touched, but had four children by the excellent wife he later
married. However, before dealing further with this question,
I want to say something about the evolution and develop-
ment of love — its evolution in nature apart from man, and
its development in individual human beings.

People sometimes ask what purpose love serves in nature.
But a biologist cannot answer a question framed in terms of

216 .

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

purpose, for purpose implies deliberate design for a con-
scious end, and there is no evidence pf that in the natural
world! To be biologically answerable , the question should
run, "What functions does love* perform in living organ-
isms?" Even so, the biologist cannot give a nice simple or
single answer, for among animals there are various different
kinds of love, expressed in various different ways, and mani-
fested in different degrees of clarity and intensity. There has
been an evolution of love, as of every other property of life,
and we must supplement our question by asking how the
different kinds of love have evolved.

In many young mammals, like kittens, some adult
mammals, like otters, and various adult birds, like penguins
and rooks and swifts, we find something closely akin to pur
love of play or sport — the enjoyment of bodily performance
for its own sake, irrespective of its practical utility. Among
birds there is the beginning of a love of beauty, manifested
in the collection of bright objects by jackdaws and magpies,
and in bowerbirds by a preference for certain colours and
by their deliberate painting of their bowet-s. The roots of
love of country are shown in the attachment of many kinds
of birds and mammals to their home territory, and of love
of nature in such rituals as the high aerial dawn-chorus of
swallows and martins.

Finally, animals show several different types of love in the
restricted sense — love focused on other individuals. There
is parental love, of parent for offspring; there is offspring
love, of offspring for parent ; there is sexual love, between
actual or potential mates ; and there is social love, fonother
individuals of the same species. The roots of social love are
found in gregarious animals, and are manifested in the distress
caused by solitude and the impulse to seek the company of
their fellows.

Parental love is in most species only maternal. In many
mammals and in all polygamous birds, the mother alone is
concerned .about the young — think of bears or sheep or the
domestic hen. But in some fish and toads and a few birds,
like emus and phalaropes, it is the male alone that looks
after eggs and young; and of course in all our familiar song-
birds the cock bird helps to feed the young once they have

217

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

been hatched by the hen, while in birds like grebes and
gannets, auks and petrels and penguins, both cock and hen
share equally in incubation too. Comparatively few insects
show parental love (the female earwig is one), and in those
where it is most developed, namely bees and ants, it is not
strictly speaking parental love but maiden-aunt love (or
nurse love if you like), for it is only the neuter females, the
so-called workers, that have the instinct to look after the
eggs and grubs.

This brings up an important point. In animals, parental
(and nurse) love is purely instinctive; not only. the urge to
care for the young, but also the detailed ways in which it
manifests itself, depend on inborn nervous mechanisms, and
do not have to be learned. Furthermore, like all instincts,
parental love, though doubtless associated with strong emo-
tions, is blind and automatic. It is a psychological mechan-
ism which works admirably in normal conditions, but is apt
to go astray in abnormal ones. Thus a worker wasp which
was kept from access to food for the young was seen to satisfy
its nurse-instintft by biting off the hind 'end of a grub and
offering it to the front end 1

The same blind imprisonment of instinctive behaviour
within a limited situation is seen even in birds and mammals.
Thus song-birds only pay attention to their young so long
as they are in the nest. When a cuckoo has ejected its foster-
brothers and -sisters, the parents take no notice of their cries
of distress, even if they are hanging on a twig just outside
the nest. And even in normal circumstances it is not the
sight of the young bird as an individual that impels the
parents to feed it, but merely the colour and shape of its
gaping mouth : they will feed an artificial gape or painted
wood (if properly made) just as readily as their own nest-
lings. And a cow distressed by the removal of her calf can
be comforted by its skin.

The same sort of thing holds for the sexual instinct.
Certain orchids get pollinated by looking aijd perhaps
smelling like female flies: the male flies try to mate with
them, and in so doing transfers the fertilizing pollen from
flower to flower. Similarly many birds will attempt to mate
with a stuffed dead female as readily as with a real live one —

218

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

provided that it is set up in a certain pose; and the sperm for
artificial insemination in cattle and horses can be obtained
because the mating urge of bulls and stallions is aroused by
suitable dummies as well as by liVe cows or mares.

But the mental life of bh'ds, for instance, is a curious
mixture, in which some types of emotional behaviour are
carried out blindly, crudely, and wholly instinctively, while
others depend on detailed learning. A cock robin, for in-
stance^(not the fat American robin, which is really a thrush,
but our little European robin redbreast), will be automatic-
ally and irsationally stimulated to his threat-display by the
sight of a red breast, whether on a live rival, a stuffed bird,
or a headless and tailless dummy; but he learns the difference
between his mate and all other hen robins and can recognize
her individually afar off.

The robin's red breast and the gape of nestling birds are
examples of what are called releasers — they are visual sign-
stimuli which release the action of innate impulses and
chains of activity, in the one case of hostility or aggression,
in the other of service or affection — the beginnings of hate
and of love.

In polygamous-promiscuous species like ruff and sage-
grouse and blackcock, the sexes never meet except on a
communal display-ground, and the males' sexual "love" is
merely the urge to physical mating, expressed in violent
antics serving to intimidate rivals or stimulate mates by
showing off the exaggerated masculine display-plumage.

In most birds, however, there is an emotional bond be-
tween mates, and the pair stays together, either for the
brood, or for the season, or, in a number of species, for life.
Life-mates like to' be close together even in the winter, as you
may see with jackdaws, 't his emotional bond is clearly one of
the forerunners of human married love.

In some water-birds, such as grebes, where male and
female share equally the duties of incubating the eggs and
feeding the young, there are elaborate ceremonies of mutual
display, participated in by both mates together, and obvi-
ously highly stimulating to the emotions. What is more,
some displays are not confined to the period of courtship or
physical mating, but continue right through the breeding

219

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

season, until the young are full-grown. Here I would say the
rituals of animal lovp find their fullest expression.

Though from the standpoint of the species this emotional
bond has been evolved for the utilitarian function of keeping
the mated pair together whilfc their joint efforts are needed
for the successful rearing of their young, from that of the
individual birds the ceremonies are clearly very satisfying
and have emotional value in themselves.

Emotional life in animals is essentially a patchwork.
Particular urges or emotions arise in particular circum-
stances, and usually stay in separate channels. Fear may
dictate behaviour for a period, then suddenly hunger steps
in, then perhaps sexual desire. Animals lack man's capacity
to # bring together many different urges and emotions,
memories and hopes, into a single continuity of conscious
life. The main exception to this, interestingly enough, con-
cerns love. Both in the parent-offspring relation and in that
between the two sexes, attraction and hostility are often
combined. The primary reaction of a nestling or a brooding
heron to the appearance of an adult at the nest is fear and
hostility: before the arriving bird is accepted as parent or as
mate, it must be recognized as such; and recognition is*
effected by a special "appeasing" display. This in turn forms
the basis for the elaborate ceremony of nest-relief, which
finally serves as an emotional bond between the mated pair.

In many birds' species, during the ''courtship" period,
the sight of a bird of the opposite sex often acts as a
sign-stimulus releasing both hostility (as an alien intruding
individual) and attraction (as a potential mate). Thus the
unmated male house-sparrow in possession of a nest-site
endeavours to attract passing females, but if one tries to
enter the nest he will attack her, and evei\ after they have
accepted each other as' mates, it may be two or three days
before she is allowed into her future home.

The courtship-displays of many species turn out to be
ritualizations of this ambivalent emotion compounded of
attraction and either hostility or fear (and show many
parallels with human courtship, especially in young people).
The male bird's aggressivity may be transformed into a
stimulating display of masculinity and desire, and female

220

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

timidity often expresses itself by reverting to infantile de-
pendence, with adoption of the nestling's food-begging
attitude.

Thus love, in the sense of positive attraction between
individuals, has arisen during biological evolution in the
form of a patchwork of distinct urges or drives, each serving a
distinct biological function. The mechanism of each separate
kind of love is largely built in to the species by heredity.
For the most part, each drive is automatically activated by
a sign-s\imulus functioning as a releaser, a distinctive pattern
of sight or s»und (like the gape of the nestling for stimulat-
ing the parental feeding drive of its parents, or the "song"
of male grasshoppers for the sexual approach of the female) ;
and is expressed in a genetically predetermined set of actions
(like the displays of amorous male birds). Learning "by
experience plays only a secondary role, or sometimes no
role at alV

Further, there is little synthesis of the separate drives into
a coherent or continuous mental life. However, desire is often
frustrated, and attraction often compounded with hostility or
fear, and the resultant conflict is reconciled in the perform-
•ance of some ritualized ceremony of display. This may then
be further specialized during subsequent evolution to pro-
vide more effective stimulation of the female, or be converted
into a mutual ceremony serving as a bond to keep the mated
pair together; and such ceremonies, especially the mutual
ones, may come to have emotional value in themselves.

"'Tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round," sang
the anonymous ballad-monger. And certainly love, iji its
dawning manifestations among animals, secures the per-
petuation of the Species and the care of offspring, lays the
foundations of more or less perm-inent marriage unions, and
may even emerge as a value in itself. •

When we come to our own species, we find a certain
general parallel between the process of individual develop-
ment of lov,e in man and that of its evolution in animals, but
also many important differences. There is more reliance on
learning by experience, less on inborn genetic mechanisms.
However, two or three inborn sign-stimuli d9 seem to exist.
One is the smile. Even a crudely grimacing model of a

221

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

smiling face will elicit from an infant a smile (and the
positive mood which goes with smiling and is one of the
bases of enjoying and loving). And women's breasts (though,
as Dr Johnson pointed oift, not feeding-bottles) will act as a
powerful sign-stimulus to male sexual love.

Non-sexual loves of many kinds appear and develop in the
growing child. At the outset are the simple basic desires for
food and warmth and protection, soon transmuted into love
of enjoyment and contentment, general satisfaction and ful-
filment. Then the personal focusing of love on to the indi-
viduals that provide what is desired — first mother or nurse,
then father, brothers and sisters, and other children. Then
the widening of the circle of love and of personal attachment
(Walt Whitman speaks of the "fluid and attaching char-
acter" that some people seem to exude); and finally, love for
the beautiful or the strange, the thrilling or the significant.

These more complex loves may sometimes attain the in-
tensity of passions. The full force of a child's emotions may
be bound up with some shell or curious stone that he has
found: or the experience of beauty may change his whole
emotional attitude to life. Let Wordsworth speak:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Or again, in his famous Ode:

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.

222

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

"T^e hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the
flower" may pass and fade, but the # experience of love
for natural beauty, of enhanced vitality and the upleaping
heart, of self-transcendence in lovihg union with something
outside oneself, may change x growing human being per-
manently, and can enter later into his love for God, for
sameone of the other sex, for ideals. As one of Truman
Capote's characters says, apropos of a jay's lovely blue egg
that she had kept from childhood, "love is a chain of love.
. . . Because you can love one thing, you can love another."

The growing child comes to love many different kinds of
things in many different ways — sometimes with the self-
centred desire for possession; sometimes with the self-
transcending desire for unity with the object of desire, or the
outgoing sense of communion in the act of experience," as
with Richard Jefferies' or Thomas Traherne's mystical
experiences of the beauty and wonder of nature; sometimes
with the enriching of enjoyment in the full and free exercise
of his faculties, physical or psychological.
• And then, at puberty, there is the intrusion of the sexual
impulse. The sex impulse appears as an alien power, strong,
new and often frightening. The experience is all the more
upsetting because the new power, though alien to our past life
or present make-up, is yet within us, a part of ourselves. The
central problem of adolescence is, in general, how to in-
corporate this intruding force into the developing person-
ality; and in particular, how to integrate sex and love. This is
especially acute because of the disharmony between man's
biological nature and his social arrangements, the fac* that
there is a gap of years between the time when the sexual
impulse emer^esT (and emerges at maximum strength, at
least in boys, as Dr Kinsey has shown) and the time when
marriage is possible.

Adol escence is also the time when love, as distinct from
sexual desire, alters its character. At puberty romantic ideal-
ism raises # its head as well as sex: and another problem of
adolescence is how to integrate this idealism with the hard
facts of existence, and romance with the practical business
of living, ,

Man, however, differs from all other animals in having

223

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

a brain which can and largely does bring all the various
elements of experience into contact, instead of keeping them
in a series of wholly or largely separate compartments or
channels. This not only provides the basis for conceptual
thought, and so for all man's ideas and philosophic systems,
ideals and works of art and creative imagination, but also
for his battery of complex sentiments unknown in animate,
such as reverence and religious awe, moral feelings (includ-
ing hate and contempt arising from moral abhorrence), and
love in its developed form.

It also, however, provides the basis for emotional or
psychological conflict on a scale unknown in animals. One of
the unique characters of man is his constant subjection to
mental conflict, with the resultant necessity for making
moral decisions. Man's morality, indeed, is a necessary
consequence of his inner conflicts.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in love. Strong
sexual desire, as well as the reverent worship of beauty, self-
fulfilment, and ideal aspiration, plays a part in human love.
But crude sexual desire in itself is merely lust and is uni-
versally regarded as immoral, and to many people the sexual
act appears as something dirty or disgusting.

However, love at its truest and fullest and most intense
can include in its single embrace an enormous range of
emotions and sentiments, and fuse them all, even those of
baser metal, in its crucible. It can comDine humility with
pride, passion with peace, self-assertion with self-surrender;
it can reconcile violence of feeling with tenderness, can
swallow up disgust in beauty and imperfection in fulfilment,
and sublimate sexual desire into joy and fuller life.

It can, but it does not always do so. Sometimes the in-
hibitions of morality or romantic idealism are too strong,
and the fusion is imperfect, the reconciliation remains in-
complete. This is especially so in puritan cultures and
religions imbued with a sense of sin. St Paul's attitude to
sexual love is expressed in his dictum that it is better to
marry than to burn: tormented souls like St Augustine and
Tolstoy came to regard sexual love not as fulfilment but as
sin, and Gandhi's autobiography tells us how his early
indulgences drove him later to prescribe — for others 1 —

224

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

self-aAtrol and abstinence instead of the ideal of pure enjoy-
ment, of joy disciplined and transformed by tenderness,
reverence, and beauty.

Sometimes, indeed, love involves contradictory and un-
reconciled emotions. In one of his most famous poems,
Catullus wrote

Odi et amo : quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

"I hate^and love: how can that be, perhaps you ask? I know
not, but so ^feel, and am in torment." The hero of Somerset
Maugham's Of Human Bondage is intellectually aware of
the imperfections and indeed the unattractiveness of the girl
he is in love with, but remains emotionally enslaved by her.

In love, indeed, the conflict between reason and emotfon
is often at highest pitch. However, though falling in love is
irrational^ or at least non-rational, yet love can be (though it
is not always) later influenced by reason and guided by
experience. Emotion in general is non-rational; it tends to
all-or-nothing manifestations and is naturally resistant to the
critical and balanced spirit of reason. And the emotions
involved in love are so violent that this uncritical or anti-
critical tendency readily overrides reason. That is why love
is called blind, why it may become a kind of madness or
sickness. But reason can play a part later. With time, as
the emotional violeftce of love diminishes and rational ex-
perience accumulates, a point may suddenly be reached at
which reason gains the upper hand, the deluded lover's
eyes are opened, he realizes that he has been blind, an # d he
falls out of love as he once fell in. Such experiences are use-
ful though harsh -reminders of the sad fact that emotional
certitude alone* is never ft guarantee of Tightness or truth,
in religious or nforal belief any more; than in love : sudden
religious conversion resembles falling in love in many ways,
including its non-rationality.

Luckily for the human race, love often chooses aright.
And then reason and emotional experience may give it eyes
to see and may transform a transient madness into the highest
and most enduring sanity. This rationally gjuided transfor-
mation and development of love has been immortally

H 225

NEW BOTTLES FOfc MEW WINE

described by Wordsworth in his poem, Perfect Woman. It
is too long for me to quote in its entirety, but you will recall
how it begins with a magical, altogether non-rational
moment — *

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleam'd upon my sight;

how experience altered the vision —

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

and how it finally transformed sudden magic into permanent
serenity —

And now I sec with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine . . .
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

Often, however, love does not choose right the first time.
I should rather say, first love often does not choose perman-
ently right. Many teen-age "pashes" and "crushes", how-
ever violent at the time, and many cases of adolescent
calf-love, though often valuable and indeed "right" in the
sense of providing necessary experience to the callow
personality, are soon outgrown.

Even when it comes to marriage, many first choices are
wrong, and later ones may be much more right. The relation
between love and marriage urgently needs reconsideration.
For one thing, in our Western societies, we Have become too
credulous about romantic love, just as earlier ages were too
credulous about religious faith. Both can often be blind, and
then both can mislead us. For another, we have become
obsessed with the rigid moralists' stern insistence on the
inviolability and indissolubility of marriage — a religious
doctrine imposed on a social bond.

The emotional certitude of being in love with someone
does not guarantee either its rightness, or its uniqueness, or

226

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

its pefmanence, any more than it ensures that the love shall
be reciprocated. And the undoubted general desirability, both
social afnd personal, of long-enduring mtmogamous marriage
does not preclude the occasional desirability of divorce and
change of marriage-partner, qpr justify the branding of any
extra-marital love as a grave social immorality or personal

Our reconsideration should be related to the idea of
greater fulfilment. Of course conflicts will inevitably arise
betwedti greater fulfilment for oneself, for one's partner,
one's children, and one's community; but they will then be
better illuminated and more readily soluble than in the light
of romantic illusion, religious dogma, or static and absolute
morality.

It must be remembered that love and its manifestations
differ in different societies and cultures. We find a differen-
tiation ^nd development of love as part of the general
cultural evolution of man. Margaret Mead and other anthro-
pologists have shown to what a surprising extent cultures
may differ in their general attitude to love,, both sexual and
parental, and in their expression of it. Masculinity may be
valued either higher or lower than femininity, ardour and
passion higher or lower than coolness and acceptance;
parental love may be either indulgent or strict to children,
or its expression, warm and full in early years, may be
suddenly withdraw from the child at a certain age; the
attitude of society both to pre-marital love-making and post-
marital love-affairs may differ enormously.

A striking example of the evolution of love is the rise of
the idea of romantic love in medieval Europe. This found an
exaggerated expression in the ballads of the troubadours and
the rituals of dhivalry, btit has left a permanent mark on our
Western civilization. .

Love presents, in intensive form, man's central and
perennial problem — how to reconcile the claims of the
individual and of society, personal desires with social aims.
The problem is perhaps most acute in adolescence, for this
involves a disharmony of timing: our sexual desires arise,
and in males arise in fullest force, several years before mar-
riage is desirable or possible. Different cultures have met

227

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

this problem in very different ways. Thus in eighteenth-
century England and nineteenth-century France it was the
acknowledged thing for upper-class young men to take
a mistress, while this was frowned on in Geneva and New
England. In twentieth-centuyy America, dating and petting
have superseded "bundling" as the recognized formula.

Many primitive societies go further, and institutionalise
adolescent love. Thus among the Masai of East Africa the
boys after initiation become Moran or Warriors and live in
communities with the initiated girls, sharing what seems to
be a very agreeable love-life. Only after some years do they
marry, and from then on, extra-marital love is severely
frowned on. Their neighbours, the Kikuyu, had a somewhat
similar system, in which, however, full sexual intercourse
was not permitted. The same sort of arrangement prevails
among the Bontocs of the Philippines, as recorded by
Stewart Kilton in his Dream Giants and Pygmies. Here, as
among country-folk in England until quite recently, adol-
escent love-making serves also as a try-out of fertility. A girl
can only marry if she conceives; and sterfle girls become "a
sort of educational institution" for young boys.

In modern civilization the problem is very real and very
serious. On the one hand, clearly both undisciplined indulg-
ence and complete promiscuity in love are individually
damaging, or anti-social, or both; but on the other hand,
complete repression of this most powerful of impulses is
equally damaging, and so is the self-reproach that the in-
dulgence or even the mere manifestation of the impulse
arouses in sensitive adolpscents who have had an exaggerated
sense of sin imposed on them. From another angle, it is
tragic to think of millions of human beings denied the full
beauty and exaltation of love precisely while 'their impulses
are strongest and their censibilities at their highest pitch.

No civilization has yet adequately harmonized the dis-
harmony or provided satisfactory means of resolving the
conflict. Indeed there can be no solution in the sense that
there is a single definite solution to a mechanical puzzle or a
mathematical problem. The problem of love, as of any other
aspect of life, must be solved ambulando> or rather vivendo,
in living; and the correctness of the solution is only to be

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

measured by the fulfilment achieved, the degree to which
desiratjle possibilities are realized and # conflicting elements
and interests harmonized. What is more, we can rarely
expect to arrive at a satisfactory 'solution at the first shot:
fulfilment is a process, and wfc have to learn it, to achieve it
step by step, often making mistakes, often precipitated into
flew and unforeseen problems or conflicts by the solution of
previous ones.

Love between the sexes can provide some of the highest
fulfilments of life. It also provides an important means for
the development of personality: through it we learn many
necessary things about ourselves, about others, about society,
and about human ideals. We must, I think, aim at a moral
and religious climate of society in which the adolescent
experiments of love, instead of being branded as wicked or
relegated to furtive and illicit gropings, or repressed until
they coHapse in neurosis or explode in lust, or merely tol-
erated as an unpleasing necessity, are socially sanctioned and
religiously sanctified, in the same sort of way as marriage is
now. Adolescent affairs of the heart could be regarded as
reverent experiments in love, or as trial marriages, desirable
preparations for the more enduring adventure of adult
marriage. Young people would assuredly continue to make
mistakes, to be selfish or lustful or otherwise immoral ; but
matters would I api sure be better than they are now, and
could not well be much worse.

In considering love we must not leave out hate, for in
one sense love and hate are the positive and negative aspects
of the same thing, the primary emotional reaction to awther
individual. This can either be one of attraction, desire, or
tenderness, oj; one of repulsion, fear, or hostility. In this
light it is easy, to understand how love, especially when
ardent and blind, can so readily turti into equally uncritical
hate.

From the evolutionary angle, however, love and hate
must be thought of as distinct. They have independent
origins and are canalized and expressed in different ways.
As we have seen, love in animals may have a number of
separate and specific manifestations — parental, sexual, and
social. The same holds for hate: it may manifest itself in fear,

229

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

f

in avoidance, or in aggression. We have also seen how love
and hate may be simultaneously aroused, as in the combina-
tion of desire and hostility in the sexual life of birds, and
may then be compounded and the conflict reconciled in a
new expression, in the form of a ritual display.

For the most part, however, psychological conflict is
avoided in animals by means of an automatic nervous medf-
anism similar to that which prevents conflicting muscles from
coming into action simultaneously. When, for instance, a
nervous message is sent to the flexor muscles to contract and
bend our arm, it is accompanied by a second message in-
hibiting and relax; ng the extensor mucles which would
straighten it. The same sort of thing often happens with more
complicated reflex activities, and, as already mentioned, with
animal instincts: when the fear instinct is switched into
action, the hunger or the sex instinct is switched out.

It may also operate in man's emotional conflicts: one of
two conflicting patterns of feeling and thought may be either
voluntarily and temporarily suppressed into the sub-con-
scious, or wholly and permanently repressed into the un-
conscious. There, however, as Freud discovered, it can still
continue its nagging and produce a sense of guilt. Total and
unremembered repression naturally occurs most often in
infancy and early life, before experience and reason have had
time to begin coping with the paralysing conflict between
contradictory emotions and impulses.

The primal conflict which besets the human infant is
between love and hate. He (or she) inevitably loves his
mother (or mother-surrogate) as the fountainhead of his
satisfactions, his security, comfort, and peace. But at times
he is also angry with her, as the power whjch arbitrarily,
it seems to him, denies him satisfaction ^nd thwarts his
impulses : and his anger'calls into play what the psychologists
call aggression — his battery of magic hate-phantasies and
death-wishes and destructive rage-impulses.

But his hate soon comes into paralysing conflict with his
love, and must be repressed. It also gives him a sense of
guilt or wrongness, even from its lair in the unconscious;
and this charge of primal guilt continues to exist and is built
into his developing personality. When an action or impulse

230

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LOVE?

arouses this sense of guilt, it is automatically felt as wrong.
Thus the infantile conflict between love and hate generates
what we may call the individual's proto-ethical mechanism,
the rudiment around which his fconscience and his truly
ethical sense of right and wrong are later built, rather as his
embryonic notochord provided the basis for the future
development of his backbone.

Of course, reason and experience, imagination and ideals
also make their contributions. But the basis of conscience
and etfiics remains irrational and largely unconscious, as
shown by the terrifying sense of sin and unworthiness which
besets those unfortunates on whom a tqo-heavy burden of
personal guilt has been imposed.

Consciences, in fact, are not genetically predetermined and
do not grow automatically like backbones, but need the
infantile conflict between love and hate for their origination.
This is demonstrated by recent studies like those of John
Bowlby and Spitz, on children who have been brought up in
impersonal institutions or otherwise deprived of the care of
a mother or pers&nal mother-substitute, during a critical
period between one and three years old. Many of them
1 never develop a conscience, and grow up as amoral beings,
creatures without ethics.

The mother is thus the central figure in the evolution of
love. For one thing, maternal love always involves tender-
ness and devoted care, which sexual love does not. Only
when the different kinds or components of love become
blended, as they do most thoroughly in man, though to some
extent in some birds and mammals, does sexual love^ome
to involve tenderness as well as desire. As Robert Bridges
writes in his Testament of Beauty, "In man this blind motherly
attachment is "the spring of his purest affection, and of all
compassion." And again, "Through motherhood it [self-
hood] came in animals to altruistic feeling, and thence-after
in man rose to spiritual affection."

But th? mqther also provides the focus for the human
infant's personal emotions, both of love and hate, and in so
doing unwittingly lays the foundations of conscience, and
starts the child on its course towards high morality and
spiritual ideals.

231

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

I have no space to discuss many other aspects of love —
the problem of homosexual love, for instance ; or the inter-
esting differences found by Dr Kinsey between the develop-
ment of sexual love in mfen and in women ; or the relations
between married love and conjugal fidelity.

But I would like to close with an affirmation of the unique
importance of love in human life — an affirmation whfch
seems to me essential in a tormented age like ours, where
violence and disillusion have joined forces with undigested
technological advance to produce an atmosphere of cynicism
and crude materialism. *

Mother-love is indispensable not only for the healthy and
happy physical growth of young human beings, but for their
healthy and happy moral and spiritual growth as well.
Personal love between the sexes is not only indispensable for
the physical continuance of the race, but for the full develop-
ment of the human personality. It is part of education:
through love, the self learns to grow. Love of beauty and of
all lovely and wonderful things is equally indispensable for
our mental growih and the realization of our possibilities. It
brings reverence and a sense of transcendence into sexual and
personal love, and indeed into all of life. In general, love is a
positive emotion, an enlargement of life leading on towards
greater fulfilment and capable of counteracting human hate
and destructive impulses.

Let the final word be that of a poet who was also a man of
science — Robert Bridges.

HejyVristotle] hath made; Desire to be the prime mover of all.

I see the emotion of saints, lovers and poets all

To be the kindling of some personality

By an eternizing passion; and that God's worshipper

Looking on any beauty falleth straightway in love;

And that love is a fire in whose devouring flames

All earthly ills arc consumed.

232

THE BEARING OF SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE QN # BELIEF IN A
FREE SOCIETY 1

When I saw my title in print I realized its ambiguity. It
could mean either "The Bearing of Scientific Know-
ledge on Belief, in a Free Society' ' or it might mean "The
Bearing of-Scientific Knowledge on Belief in a Free Society".
However, I am very glad that that ambiguity is there,
because in the development of my theme I hope that both
meanings will emerge, and will emerge as significantly
related to the general theme of this Charter Day, namely,
"The University's Responsibility in the Tradition of
Freedom".

First of all, let us remember that freedom is one of those
general terms which has the rather unfortunate property of
meaning several flifferent things. First of* all, it can mean
freedom from as well as freedom of; and that, as you re-
member, was a great headache to those who had to translate
President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms into other languages.
Freedom from is of course exceedingly important. It includes
freedom from restraint, freedom from tyranny, freedom from
want, freedom from fear, and from many other undesirable
things. But freedom of is equally important: freedom of
opinion, belief, opportunity, assembly, and so forth.

Then in common parlance freedom is sometimes v&ed in
another sense as meaning simply the absence of all restraint,
freedom to acj as you will or to do what you like. That, how-
ever, is a very inadequate and indeed incorrect definition of
freedom: it denotes licence and nofliberty, or, in relation to
the freedom of the will, a completely arbitrary power of
choice. You will find that all the great thinkers of the world
agree that aU such definitions are false and misleading.
Freedom from is never freedom from all restraint, but from
arbitrary power or from some restraint (which may be an

1 Charter Day address to the University of dregon, 1954
H* ' 233

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

internal restraint in our own minds or souls, just as m&ch as
an external restraint by an outer authority) which impedes
or prevents freedom for the full and rewarding realizations
and enjoyments of our life-enhancing activities and creative
faculties, or, in a word, for oijr richer fulfilment. Again, as
all great philosophers agree, to speak of freedom of choice
as purely arbitrary is essentially meaningless. Choice cap
never be wholly arbitrary. The fullest freedom is the expres-
sion of an inner compulsion of our being, of a choice which
we have come to feel as inevitably necessary. When the
poet says "we needs must love the highest when we see it",
that is a poetical and perhaps rather idealized expression
of a profound truth. In general, once we manage to "see
things steadily and see them whole", the choice is made
for«us.

After this brief semantic introduction let me come to the
question of belief. What do we mean by freedom or belief?
If we Westerners look at the subject historically, we find
that it first meant freedom to believe in different versions of
the Christian faith. That had become a political necessity in
order to put an end to the devastating religious wars and
persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Then it was extended to mean freedom for other faiths —
first Judaism and eventually Islam and Buddhism and other
Asian religions : and pari passu with this, freedom or at any
rate reasonable absence of persecution* for so-called free-
thinkers, atheists, and the like. However, in the twentieth
century a serious diminution of this freedom has occurred.
First there was the quarrel between Fascism and Catholic-
ism, Between Mussolini and the Pope, over the education of
young Italians. Then there was the restriction of freedom in
Nazi Germany, involving the extraordinary claim that there
was a distinction between Aryan science, which was good
and sound, and Jewish science, which was wrong and wicked.
Meanwhile the same sort of trend, only on a larger scale,
developed in Communist Russia. From the beginning there
was no freedom of belief for "deviationists" like Trotsky.
Then came the vilification and prohibition of all so-called
"bourgeois" or "capitalist-imperialist" thought and science,
which culminated in the strange dogma leading to the

234

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND A FREE SOCIETY

exaltation of "Marxist science" which is inevitably correct
and good, as against "bourgeois science" which somehow is
always* wrong. This came to a head iri the amazing pheno-
menon of Lysenko and the rise ©f Michurinism, accorded
official status when the so-called truth about genetics was
laid down by the Central Committee of the Communist
Varty. The same kind of thought-control was also applied
in many fields of literature and art. Finally, we are seeing in
the West, and perhaps particularly in the United States, the
tendency to impose uniformity by public opinion, to crack
down on heterodoxy and even difference, to introduce thought-
control under the pretext of combating Communism.

This results from the fact that beliefs are again getting
mixed up with power politics and with questions of national
security, as they were in the religious wars of the seventeenth
century. From another angle, the authoritarians have been
confirmed in their resistance to full freedom of ideas by the
anthropologists' demonstration of the relativism of beliefs
and systems of morality.

. However, though in one sense men in.any truly liberal
society are free to believe anything, however absurd — that
the moon is made of green cheese, or astrological nonsense,
or that measurements of the Great Pyramid can tell us some-
thing about the future — yet there must be practical limits
to such freedom. For, after all, beliefs have practical conse-
quences. An obvidtis example concerns beliefs about health.
Now that scientific and medical discovery has given us a
knowledge of the true causation of infectious disease, we can
no longer afford to tolerate the belief that disease is not due
to germs, but to divine visitiation, or punishment for sin, or
some other supernatural or moral cause. More accurately,
though wc m&y tolerate the beliefs, we cannot tolerate the
actions that spfing from them, such as permitting people
suffering from infectious diseases to be free to spread them.
Similarly, in no society is it possible to allow freedom to the
beliefs of those whom we class as insane. The beliefs of the
insane en3anger themselves and often threaten others. This
is especially true if they indulge in the belief that they are
reincarnations of Napoleon, or have a divine mission to
scourge the universe, but is still true if they are too different

2 35

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

from the other human beings in their community to f take
sufficient account of the facts of reality or to draw suffi-
ciently rational conclusions from the facts. When basically
insane men, like Hitler, attain political and military power,
we have to destroy them or thpir power.

We men are not truly free to believe nonsense, even when
nonsensical beliefs involve no immediate or obvious praor
tical consequences. A belief, after all, though in one sense it
is a crystallization or fusion of emotions and feelings and
knowledge into a system of ideas, is always in some degree
operative or effective; it always has a dynamic aspect, always
tends to issue in action of some sort.

Beliefs may have immediate practical effects on action.
For instance, the belief of the early Mohammedans that they
would go straight to Paradise if they died in battle for the
Islamic faith had an enormous effect on human history.
Again, the Nazis' belief in Aryan superiority and, Jewish
inferiority led to a very practical and quite appalling effect,
namely gas chambers for over a million Jews.

A belief also may have less immediate, but in the long run
equally serious, effects : because a belief often involves a set
of the mind and the entire personality, and determines men's
general attitude or approach to life. Beliefs always have a
potential operative effect on behaviour. Thus, the belief
which I have cited, that pestilence and plague are a divine
visitation and may be mitigated by prayer, stands in the way
of public health and discourages medical research and prac-
tice. Too strong a belief in salvation in the next world has
often^led to a despisipg of this world — to exaggerated
asceticism, to tolerance of dirt and disease, to campaigns
against beauty and enjoyment, and in general to neglect of
the duty of building the kingdom" of heaveh upon earth.
Again, a belief in miracles discourages a beKef in the order
of nature and so in science and the value of scientific re-
search and the scientific spirit. A belief in predestined fate,
such as we find in superstitions like astrology or palmistry,
discourages the belief in free will and the power of creative
activity. And finally, a belief in revelation or dogmatic auth-
ority, whether religious or political, encourages authori-
tarianism and intolerance and is therefore opposed to

236

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND A FREE SOCIETY

democracy, to science's progressive discovery of truth, and
to freedom of opinion.

Yet, as I indicated earlier, the fullest freedom is always in
a very real sense the fullest neceSsity, in matters of art and
morals as well as in matters of inquiry and belief. In matters
of morals, we know that we must act in a certain way and
that, if we do not, we are not fully moral, or are even immoral
or sinful. In the arts the great artist or writer is one who
knows and feels the necessity of his vision, and then knows
or learns how to employ the technical means necessary to
express it satisfactorily. He feels the necessity of full and true
expression and only so becomes truly and creatively free.

In science we are free to inquire into anything of relevance
to scientific inquiry; but we are not free to discover anything
except some fragment of the truth or some approximation to
it. We scientists may make mistakes in interpretation; we
may make errors of omission or commission ; but in the long
run the cumulative process of scientific discovery, the free
creation of new knowledge and new organizations of know-
ledge, is subject fo the necessity of truth , # truth to external
fact and truth of internal coherence.

Beliefs are ultimately subject to necessity; in the long run
man cannot believe what is false. As the Romans said,
"magna est Veritas et praevalebit". It has been cynically
observed that truth sometimes takes a very long time pre-
vailing; but the statement is essentially true — truth will
eventually prevail. Its lag in prevailing is due to obstruction
by vested interests, like the Roman Catholic Church's re-
sistance to the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo <w the
Fundamentalists' resistance to the idea of evolution. But
even then it i§ partly due to psychological resistances — what
one of our leading psycho-analysts, Dr Ernest Jones, de-
scribes as "man's blind resistance to the forces making for
higher and fuller consciousness". These resistances include
sheer intellectual laziness, and the fear or dislike of new facts
and ideas as Against the comfortable assurance of the old.
They also include inner resistances to changing our primitive
methods of resolving conflict. For instance, a frequent in-
fantile method of resolving our primal conflicts is to project
our own inner aggression on to some external scapegoat or

237

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

f

enemy, as was dramatically and horrifyingly illustrated by
the history of Nazi Germany, and is now being exemplified
by the mutual projection of scapegoatery from the United
States to Communist Riftsia and vice versa. Again, men
and women may cling to infantile modes of thought — to the
idea of magic, to the craving for the support of external and
absolute authority, to the desire for punishing others as an
outlet for their own sense of guilt or insufficiency, for
instance the dislike and envy by the common man for the
intellectual, which is such a common and distressing feature
of modern democratic societies. *

In psycho-analytic jargon, beliefs are introjections of
external fact. Beliefs incorporate the facts and forces of
human nature and social nature, and result in the orientation
of man, both the individual personality and the common
consciousness of society, in a more or less significant relation
to the facts of nature; beliefs are thus essentially dynamic,
and give an orientation to potential action and a directional
set to the personality. They are part of the directive mech-
anism of the hun&n microcosm; thus it is Important, and in
the long run essential, that their direction shall be right — in
other words, that our beliefs shall be correctly oriented
relatively to the directional movement of the macrocosm, the
single universal process -of transformation. There is thus a
constant and necessary interaction between our beliefs and
the facts of the universe, or rather between our beliefs and
our knowledge of the facts. A classical example is the change
in our beliefs about the position of the earth and of man in
the universe, in relation to our increasing knowledge of the
facts of astronomy since the sixteenth century; another is
the change in our beliefs about the origin of man in relation
to our increasing knowledge of the tacts of biology.

Furthermore, there it a reciprocal reaction; our beliefs
may actively influence the facts of our social life and evolu-
tion. Thus a belief in divine mission or special status of a
nation or group may have political or military results; for
instance, in Islam, in Nazi Germany, in the behaviour of the
Spaniards to the Indians of the New World, or finally, and
of most immediate relevance, in the belief of Communism
that the end which it envisages justifies any means.

238

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND A FREE SOCIETY

Further, new knowledge may even affect our beliefs about
beliefs themselves. For instance, the knowledge which we
have gained in the last fifty years froni biology and anthro-
pology, from history and prehistory, that man alone is
capable of taking the evolutionary process to greater heights ;
that he can only do so by means of advance in his cultural
•evolution, and that beliefs are important organs of cultural
evolution, is leading to a quite new belief about our beliefs.

Let me amplify this point, about beliefs necessitated by
new khowledge. We can no longer believe that man was
created in * his present form at some comparatively recent
date; for we now know that he has a fantastically long and
complicated evolution behind him. We believe that he evolved
from some sub-microscopic origin about two thousand million
years ago, up through a single-celled form, a primitive
multicellular form, and on through more complex types,
through fishlike, amphibian, reptilian, mammalian, apelike
creatures, eventually emerging in human form. Second, we
now believe that during that vast period evolution was not
merely change, but also involved a type of transformation
that we must call progress or advance — advance in complexity
and level of organization, as revealed in increasing speed, size,
power, efficiency, in increasing capacity for self-regulation
and inner physiological harmony, and, most significant of
all, in increasing level and organization of awareness, as
revealed in increase of sensory capacity, of complexity of
behaviour, of capacity for learning, remembering, and pro-
fiting by experience. Third, what has been emerging more
and more clearly in recent years is the belief that major
biological evolution seems to have come to an end, that life
has by now exhausted its material possibilities, and that its
purely physiological capacities have reached their limit.
Man has attained his new dominant position in evolution
by exploiting life's mental capacities.

Our ancestors believed that mankind was very old. They
referred jto tjie period of classical Greece and Rome as
antiquity, as if a mere two thousand years was a very long
time, whereas in the perspective of biological time it is
negligible. We now know that, biologically speaking, man
is exceedingly young. He has only become* a fully dominant

239 '

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

type since he invented urban civilization some five thousand
years ago. Sir James Jeans in one of his books gives a very
illuminating comparison. If we take the height of Cleo-
patra's Needle as representing the length of time that
elapsed from the first origin pf life on this planet to the
first beginnings of civilization, and then want to include the
amount of time since the origins of civilization till the present
day, all that would be needed would be to put a postage stamp
on its top. Frankly, when I read that I didn't feel like believing
it ; it seemed impossible. I figured it out for myself witK pencil
and paper, and after doing the sum about five times I con-
cluded that Sir James Jeans was perfectly correct. If I
recollect rightly, I think that the postage stamp would have
to be slightly thicker than ordinary, but you wouldn't have
to add a second postage stamp.

To-day we can project our time-scale into the future. The
geologists and geophysicists and astronomers now believe
that the future time available to man before life ceases to be
possible on our planet is at least as great as that which has
elapsed since the original life until now-*— at least another
two thousand million years, another Cleopatra's Needle
of time compared to the postage stamp from the pyramid to
the present. Thus we can be assured of a reasonably long
and, we may hope, a reasonably fruitful future for mankind.

Another fact which must inevitably colour our beliefs is
the fact that knowledge has been decisive in promoting
human evolution. Both man's new dominant position in the
world of life and his subsequent advance in culture and
civilization only became possible through the increase and
improvement of his awareness, in the broad sense of that
word — his factual knowledge of the external and the internal
world, his organization of that knowledge, his understand-
ing, his will and purpose, his feelings and the modes of their
expression. His advances became possible through the dis-
covery of more facts, a better interpretation of facts, the
formulation of better ideas, a better resolution of internal
conflicts — and, finally, more adequate beliefs.

As an extension of this, we are driven to a belief in science,
or rather in the scientific method. History demonstrates that
the best method' for securing advance and improvement in

240

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND A FREE SOCIETY
§

awareness, and so for securing human progress in general,
is the scientific method — in other words, going to the facts,
questioning them, framing hypotheses about them, testing
the hypotheses against the facts. It is through this dialectic
exchange between brute faot and human reason that we
discover new facts and new regularities which lead on in
'their turn to new hypotheses and new discoveries, and to a
gradually increasing body of ever more firmly established
truth. Anti-rationalists sometimes decry science for con-
stantly* changing its views — Einstein as against Newton,
Freud as against the classical psychologists, atomic physics
as against nineteenth-century atomic theory, pre-Mendelian
heredity versus modern heredity, etc. However, though
interpretation may change, the great body of established
fact and principle remains; for instance, Newtonian mech-
anics is still perfectly adequate for immediate practical
purposes in spite of the radical changes in interpretation we
owe to Einstein.

The scientific method can be utilized in any subject, not
only in natural 'sciences like physics of biology but in
anthropology, psychology, social science, archaeology, or
history. The scientific method is the best and most efficient
method of utilizing man's curiosity and interest, his desire
for comprehension and explanation and logical coherence.
Mere idle curiositv will not produce a satisfactory body of
organized knowledge. On the other hand, too much con-
centration on logical coherence, with insufficient observation
and inadequate testing of the facts, will produce purely
speculative or metaphysical word-spinning in plate of
scientifically and practically profitable theories.

Thus we come to a belief in man's mind — Pascal's "think-
ing reed". Man is the agent or instrument of further evolu-
tion, whether he likes it or not; but* he can best perform his
cosmic function if he becomes a conscious instrument, a
conscious agent of fulfilment, with the deliberate aim of
realizing further possibilities of the evolutionary process.

And that brings me to what I think is destined to prove
the greatest change in our beliefs. Lord Bryce was struck by
America's belief in the future. This foreshadows an essential
characteristic of the new age for which we are heading; we

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

t

are becoming increasingly interested in the possible future
as against the actual past, in possibilities rather than in
origins, in descendants rather than in ancestors.

When I say possibilities, I mean possibilities, not im-
possibilities; many people advance what they claim are
possibilities, but are really wish-fulfilments or unbridled
speculations. We need a science of possibilities. Such a*
science will take account of the limitations of reality as well
as of its immense potentialities. As an immediate step, we
need a new science directed to the investigation of unfealized
human possibilities. Furthermore, that must eventually be
matched with a religion based on the idea of fulfilment of
possibilities. Christianity took the first great step towards
this in proclaiming that all men have the possibility of
salvation. Our modern formulation would be that all men
have the possibility of greater fulfilment.

Let me now return to the problem of freedom ©f belief.
When we survey the cultural history of mankind, we find
that the largest advances, whether in science, in the arts, in
writing, in architecture, in religious and ihoral insight, or in
what Walt Whitman called the progress of souls — the largest
advances have taken place when there have been the greatest
outbursts of free, creative activity of the human mind and
spirit, of human personalities free from artificial restraints
and subject only to the necessities imposed by their own
nature and the nature of things.

Another clear lesson of history is that beliefs cannot be
imposed by force. The attempt to do so damages the whole
structure of society, since society has a psychological as well
as a material basis. We have two examples from our own
times. It has become clear that the Nazis^ belief in the
superiority of so-called "Aryan" science over "Jewish" or
"non-Aryan" science lfed to a degeneration of science in
Nazi Germany, because so many of their leading thinkers
and scientists were not "Aryans" and were either suppressed
or fled into exile. And I can testify from my, personal, pro-
fessional experience that the enforced rise of Michurinism
and Lysenko in the U.S.S.R. in about 1935 brought about a
degeneration of. Soviet biology, especially in the field of

242

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND A FREE SOCIETY

Again, authority cannot just forbid beliefs, though it can
forbid or restrain action flowing from false beliefs, as in
regard to public health or in regard to subversive actions
(as opposed to belief in Communism). On the other hand, it
'is possible to encourage or promote right beliefs. This cannot
be done by force, or by mere moralizing, or by the setting
ttp of orthodoxies, still less by encouraging uniformity and
discouraging originality. It must be done with the aid of
another belief — the belief in human possibilities, in the value
of free* creative activity, whether intellectual, scientific,
artistic, practical, or moral, or concerned with the develop-
ment of one's own personality. We must believe in this,
and in the eventual Tightness of its results; that is the
long-term lesson of history.

Take an example from education. We are beginning* at
long last to realize that the best results are obtained not by
just telling boys and girls what they ought to know, not by
making them learn it by heart unintelligently, still less by
trying to beat it into them a posteriori as was the practice all
through the Middle Ages; but by making them interested,
showing them things, stimulating their curiosity and their
natural desire to know and understand, their desire to find
and to create significance.

Again, in regard to society as a whole, the lesson is that we
must not merely be tolerant of differences, but should mani-
fest an active encouragement of creative diversity.

Finally, we have to believe in keeping our own lives open,
"open to novelty and change", as Charles Morris says, "and
not close them down against progress". Man is unique & an
organism in that his individual development, because it is
more than merely physiological, so largely mental and
aesthetic and spiritual, can continue until death. Thus we
should aim throughout life at the realization of fuller possi-
bilities, including possibilities of larger understanding and
more adequate and more comprehensive beliefs. If I recollect
right, it wjts Edmund Burke who said, "For the triumph of
evil it is only necessary that good men shall do nothing."
This applies to intellectual evil just as much as to moral evil.
For the triumph of falsehood and ignorance^it is only neces-
sary that men shall do nothing with their intelligence. And

. 2 43

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

the converse is also true, that for the triumph of right,
including intellectual right, it is necessary that we should
do something with our intelligence.

In conclusion I would say that the most important belief
now emerging from our new knowledge is the belief in
human possibilities, including the belief that they can be
realized to a far larger extent than now, but only by pro-
viding opportunity and example, coupled with intellectual
and moral effort. To realize this fact, to grasp this belief, and
to put it into practice seems to me to be the chief responsi-
bility of a university in the tradition of a free society.

244

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND
DESTINY 1

•

Our Western world, in this year 1 951, is psychologically
in a bad way. Our thinking is chaotic, our nerves are
jumpy, we are a prey to pessimism and depression, we seem
frightened of our human selves. Our half of the world lacks
a common faith; the other half has had imposed upon it a
dogmatic filth which can never satisfy free men. We in the
West have lost our sense of continuity, our long-term hope,
and seem only able to concentrate on prospects of immediate
disaster or immediate methods of escaping from it.

Never was there greater need for a large perspective, in
which we might discern the outlines of a general and con-
tinuing belief beyond the disturbance and chaos of the
present. Yet, paradoxically enough, never was there a
greater possibility t of attaining so large a perspective, and
attaining so firm and enduring a belief.

Every society, in every age, needs some system of beliefs,
including a basic attitude to life, an organized set of ideas
round which emotion and purpose may gather, and a con-
ception of human destiny. It needs a philosophy and a faith
to achieve a guidg to orderly living — in other words a
morality.

Any such system of beliefs must of necessity contain both
short-term and long-term elements. It must be relevant to
the immediate business of living here and now, to the devel-
opment of existirjg individual lives, to the social and political
problems of the time; but it must also be capable of reaching
out beyond the. particular to the general, beyond the im-
mediate to the enduring, so as to put men in touch with what
is universal in reality, or at least with what they feel as being
universal. And of course (though the fact is not always
recognized) our beliefs are in the long run based upon, or at
least correlated with, our knowledge and the organization
of our knowledge.

1 The third William Alanson White Memorial Lecture, 195 1

245

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

In many belief-systems there is often a break between the
elements concerned with the present and the particular, and
those concerned with the permanent and the universal. This
is especially marked at the present day. Thus,, for many
people, beliefs based on science have only immediate relev-
ance, while long-term relevance is reserved for beliefs rooted
in idealist philosophy or traditional religion. , .

However, the present epoch is the first in which our
knowledge, and the beliefs which it could support, is ade-
quate to do justice to both these aspects of our life— our
immediate business of living and acting, and qur relations
with the long-term and the universal. For the first time in
history there is available a general picture of mankind, of
the universe in which mankind exists, and of the relations
between them. The human species can see itself as a process
in time, a small but decisive element in the universal process
of evolution. An earlier generation could speak of man's
place in nature: this static formulation is now outdated;
to-day we must speak rather of man's destiny in the world-
process.

Elsewhere I have attempted to analyse the general process
of evolution more fully, and to point out some of its implica-
tions. Here I must confine myself to the brief mention of a
few essential points.

Evolution in the comprehensive sense is a unique, one-
way, irreversible process in time, generating novelty and
variety. During the process, an immense increase in
organization has been produced, but only in a few sectors
in which conditions have been favourable.

In the universe at large, evolution has remained on the
inorganic level ; its rate has been exceedingly slow, and the
degree of organization it has produced has usually not
exceeded the atomic, though here and there is has reached
a simple molecular level.

On our earth (and possibly on a few other planets of other
stars), conditions permitted the formation of complex organic
molecules capable of self-reproduction and therefore what
we call alive. With this, a new mechanism of change auto-
matically became available, in the shape of natural selection,
and the biological phase of evolution was thereby initiated.

246

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

The process of evolutionary transformation was much
accelerated, and incredibly complex organizations were pro-
duced, from cells with their thousands df different genes and
other biochemical parts, up to avjan and mammalian indi-
viduals with their thousands gf millions of such cells, and
to communities like beehives and termitaries, with their
hundreds of thousands of such individuals, existing in a
highly complex social pattern. As for variety, it will suffice
to recall that there exist some three-quarters of a million
separata species of insects alone, and probably one and a half
million species of living organisms in all. But the most
remarkable feature of biological evolution was the emergence
of mind — the increasing importance of the capacities of
living matter for knowing, feeling, and willing.

Finally, after about two billion years, biological improve-
ment reached its limit, except along this one direction— of
improve^ organization of mental capacities. This led to a
radically new phase of evolution, the human or psycho-social
phase.

Pascal gave expression to the unique value of mind in the
pattern of things when he wrote, "All bodies, the firmament,
the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not equal to the
lowest minds. For mind knows all these and itself; and these
bodies, nothing." But we have had to wait over two hundred
years for the further illumination provided by evolutionary
biology that the miftdless universe has generated mind, and,
through the mental capacities of man, can now begin to
contemplate and even to comprehend itself.

It is no coincidence that within a decade of Darwin's
Origin of Species Walt Whitman wrote "Passage to lriTdia"
with its unitary vision of the cosmos:

O, vast Rondure, swimming in space, •
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty,
Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon, and countless
stars, above,

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden, prophetic intention,
Now first it seems my thought begins to span tlfce.

247

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

Through the mental capacities of man, organizations of
a new quality and degree or complexity arise in the universe.
Human mind is capable of organizational construction and
synthesis on an unexampJed scale, and can impose unity on
a virtually unlimited variety.. In one act of consciousness, a
man can hold together elements of the present and past,
projections into the future, particular experiences and
general concepts, emotions and intellectual ideas, facts and
fancies, fears and hopes. And a single human mind in the
course of its development comprises an unlimited 'number
of such complex organizations of thought.

On this new level, the rate of evolution again becomes
much more rapid, and the process becomes concerned mainly
with transformations of ideas, cultures, and societies. It leads
to' new heights of complexity and variety of organization,
not merely in such distinctively human products as machines
and buildings and social systems, but in individual organ-
isms. During man's growth, individuality becomes person-
ality.

Here I would like to stress the importance of the organiza-
tion of our knowledge, as opposed to mere increase in its
amount. Experience is organized anew in each one of us.
So far as organization of experience is concerned, the infant
starts with a tabula rasa — but a tabula rasa endowed with
predispositions, potentialities of building up the raw materials
of experience into organized systems. "The experience of
those who recover their sight after having been blind from
infancy, together with the work of physiologists and psycho-
logists on illusions an,d perceptual assumptions (like that of
Ames and Cantril with distorted rooms), shows that even
our perceptions, far from being the automatic and immediate
product of the impact of the world of sense on our brains,
are elaborate though unconscious creations, built up and
organized by a selective synthesis of sense-data: and the
same is true of all but our most elementary emotional states.

We first organize our experience into what we call
"objects" and "events"; the words of our languages, our
concepts, and abstractions are constructions for organizing
the chaos of experience into order; so are scientific laws,
works of art, philosophies, and systems of religion.

248

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY. AND DESTINY

The development of knowledge is the most important
aspect of evolution on the human level. Not only does the
amount of available knowledge increase, but the methods of
obtaining it and of organizing it for use are improved. Even
• in the earliest civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia there
was no organized philosophy, as has been emphasized by
Henri Frankfort and his collaborators in their book Before
Philosophy \ the idea of a single universal god, one of the
most powerful organizing concepts of all time, did not
emerge % until much later; and modern science, the most
efficient method to date of obtaining and organizing know-
ledge, is a product merely of the last three centuries.

Man is a microcosm, though in a sense different from that
of earlier ages. Medieval thinkers essayed to find corre-
spondences between the structure and working of man and
of the rest" of the universe, or macrocosm; to-day we concern
ourselves with the correspondences which man establishes
between the universe and his thoughts about it, until the
macrocosm acquires a new unity and significance in the
microcosm organised by human mind. •

Man constructs within himself some sort of picture of the
'universe; a miniature model housed in what Blake called
the crystal cabinet of his mind. And this present century is
the first period in which that picture could be even approxi-
mately accurate, or approximately complete in its extent.
Furthermore, man now sees himself in a new light, as solely
responsible for continuing evolutionary advance: for this
planet at least, he is further evolution. His microcosm thus
comprises not only a picture but a purpose. .»

To-day the different elements and parts of the universe,
however distinct *or separate, however distant in space or
remote in time", may be Srought together in a single pattern
within the unity of human knowledge, and its multifarious
and often conflicting processes may be envisaged in relation
to a single line of action within the unity of human purpose.

For her$, as jlways, knowledge is related to action. It was
only through centuries of scientific labour that man could
come to know that the entire universe is a process of evolu-
tion and only in virtue of that new knowledge can he now
begin to frame a purpose and a course of action consonant

. 249

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

f

with the nature of that universal process. The dispersed
and material macrocosm is concentrated and unified in the
mental microcosm.

From a somewhat diffef ent angle, the process of evolution
in all its phases can be envicaged as a trend towards the
actualization of potentiality, the realization or fulfilment of
inherent possibilities. However, this trend is constantly coif*
fronted by obstacles to its advance. Each situation imposes
certain limitations on the possibilities to be realized, or dis-
torts their form : the degree of realization attained* is con-
ditioned by the opportunities of time and space.* Thus, over
the vast majority of the universe, conditions are such as to
prevent the attainment of any level of organization above the
atomic, and higher potentialities, such as those of life or
mind, are quite ruled out.

Again, it took over a thousand million years of biological
evolution to overcome the limitations set to the self-repro-
duction of mind and so to reveal the potentialities of life for
accumulating organized experience. And it took all of human
history until the Seventeenth century to overcome the limita-
tions set by primitive social structure on the organization of
thought and to develop the scientific method as a tool for
increasing knowledge.

L. L. Whyte has put the matter in a nutshell by defining
the essential property of all natural processes as the tendency
of systems, when conditions permit, to 'develop their char-
acteristic forms without arrest or distortion. And various
modern psychiatrists, such as Erich Fromm, concentrating
on «the particular process of human development, have
pointed out that true freedom consists in the overcoming of
the limitations and distortions imposed by external condi-
tions and internal conflict on the fulfilment of our inherent
potentialities. In the free employment and enjoyment of our
capacities, we attain the particular fruition which is the
"characteristic form" of the system we call human per-
sonality.

The first and obvious implication of this new picture of
human destiny is that man must try to understand more about
the process of eyolution, about himself as an essential opera-
tive part of it, and about the relations between himself and

250

jjCNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

the whole. He must accept what is given in the universe.

If we^are truly to accept the universe, we must not deny
the reality or validity or significance of any elements in it.
The Marxists, and the BehavioristS try to deny the validity
of the mental and spiritual elements in the universe; con-
versely, some mystics and idealists and theologians try to
dfcny the importance of the material ones.

We must accept reality as unitary, and so must reject all
dualistic ways of thinking. We must accept the fact that it is
a process, and so must reject all static conceptions. The
process is always relative, so we must reject all absolutes.
And it tends to a fuller realization of inherent potentiality,
so we must study what facilitates fulfilment and what
hinders it.

For this we must develop new methods of thinking. We
must learn how to think in terms of organization and
pattern, and in those of trend and process — what one might
call pattern-process thought. We must learn to think in
terms or organ izations-as-wholes, as well as in terms of
elements-by-analysis. We have to adjust ourthinking to deal
with one-way directional processes as well as with static
situations or reversible systems.

There are four possible main ways of thinking about the
universe. We may think in dualistic and at the same time
in static terms. This has been the characteristic mode of
European thought, of Plato and Paul, of Dante and Aquinas,
of Descartes and Newton. We may think dualistically, but at
the same time in terms of process and movement. This
combination characterizes Hegel, and also the Marxist
system. We may have a unitary system, which however is
static. This is exemplified by the thought of Buddhism, and
of a few Western philosophers, such as Spinoza. Or we may
think in unitary terms, and at the %ame time in those of
movement, trend, and process. Such a system seems cer-
tainly to be the one which now needs to be developed.

Of course, yQu can subdivide these main brands or modes
of thinking according to their dominant components at any
one time. Thus absolutist philosophies constitute one branch
of static thinking, based on absolutes as Iiipiting values of
static concepts. Again, during the last hundred years,

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

t

scientific thought has been dominated by the concept of
quantity, and this has spread into many other fields of
thought, such as economics.

Looked at from the artgle of history, each type of organ-
ization of thought can be regarded as a broad adaptation to
the situation and the conditions of the times. Thus the
emergence of the dualist idea was probably necessary vo
make man conscious of himself and his possibilities as an
independent agent, who could hope to understand and deal
with the natural forces by which he was beset. The absolutist
approach was an adaptation to provide man with some basis
of permanence from which he could operate in the flux of
events, before its apparent chaos could be more properly
comprehended as a definable continuing process. And the
quantitative mode of thought was an adaptation permitting
the fuller control of nature and the rise of precision tech-
nology. Finally, it seems that the unitary-process type is
that which is appropriate to our time to-day, to permit the
fuller control of the processes of human development, alike
of individuals ahd of societies and cultures.

An apparently progressive advance may turn out ulti-
mately to be a limitation. For instance, the insects success-
fully conquered the land by developing a method for
breathing with the aid of fine air-tubes penetrating every
tissue of the body. This constitutes an admirable mechanism
so long as the creature remains small, tut makes large size
impossible. An insect as big as a rat just wouldn't work
properly: actually no insect is bigger than a mouse. This
limitation of total size naturally sets a limit to the size of the
brain, and so to the number of cells in the brain, which in
turn sets a low limit to the degree of intelligence and
the flexibility of behaviour. That is why insects are never
very intelligent, but have to depend mainly on the often
marvellous but always rigid and limited behaviour-mechan-
isms we call instincts. This limitation of insect size is very
lucky for us, because without it, man assuredly qould never
have evolved.

However, there are certain types of advance, namely
advances in all-round organization, which do not limit future
possibilities but leave the way open for further advances and

252 m

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

therefore can be called progressive. Biological progress in
this sense takes place in a series of separate steps, each of
them talcing a finite time for its achievement, and each
making some new and different stop possible. To take a few
•obvious examples, one of the tarliest steps in progress was
the differentiation of life into plants and animals. Another
one was the attainment by life of the cellular level of organ-
ization, which in turn provided the basis for the further step
constituted by the organization of separate cells into multi-
cellular arganisms. And a very decisive step, but one taken
only in a few lines, was the evolution of a central nervous
system and brain, together with organs of special sense like
eyes. Again, the step to accurate regulation of internal
temperature provided the foundation for a new possibility —
the possibility of a unified continuity of mental life.

With the taking of this next step of progress, to the
human type of brain and mind, we pass into the third main
phase of evolution; and here too this same step-by-step
process of advance occurs. As an obvious example, before
a certain period in 'human history, man had not learned to
domesticate animals and plants. In the brief space of a few
•millennia before the beginning of urban civilization, he
achieved this step. He has made a few later refinements, but
in all major essentials the process was over before the dawn
of history; since then no important species has been added to
the list of man's dotnesticated animals or cultivated plants.

Biological evolution leads to the transformation of actual
organisms, via the struggle for existence and natural selection.
Human evolution leads to the transformation of cultiyes
(including of course the types of personality which are per-
mitted or fostered by particular cultures) via cultural and
mental selection.

Thus in man the transaction of theTeal business of evolu-
tion has been shifted from the domain of matter to that of
thought. This gives a new dimension and a new flexibility
to evolution and makes possible much quicker and fuller
adaptation/ However, the adaptation is not primarily to the
environment in the limited static sense of the external
physical environment alone, nor even to that together with
the social environment, as some sociologists* would like us

. 253

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

to believe, but to the business of transformation and realiza-
tion of inherent potentiality: that is to say, adaptation to the
process of evolution itself. Furthermore, since thought is
potential action, its organization must be adapted to the
particular problems of each* cultural stage or situation in
human transformation, though of course always also to the
longer-term aspects of the process, as in giving hopeful
continuity and an over-all relation of man to his destiny.

The most decisive of the steps in human advance are those
introducing new modes of organizing thought, new ordering
concepts, new attitudes, which help to determine the set of
conduct and the pattern of culture.

Thus magic was once the chief dominant concept. Mil-
lennia later, that was transcended — not wholly superseded,
but transcended as a dominant concept — by that of a single
universal god.

The ideas of salvation and of universality crystallized the
chaos of beliefs and the welter of misery in the late Roman
Empire into a wholly new transformation, leading to a new
dominant idea-cystem, in the shape of Christianity. The
organization of thought about social order, expressed in
codes of law applicable to all alike within the community,*
beginning with Hammurabi in ancient Babylon and culmin-
ating in the Roman Empire, served as a foundation for all
later advance in civilization. Another but much later step
was the organization of thought in termS of scientific method
and scientific knowledge.

During this last process, one development is particularly
illuminating. The eighteenth century was characterized by a
remarkable series of technical advances: coal mining, cast
iron, the steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, the power-loom,
improved communications like danals and better roads,
new methods of agriculture, the factory system, and so
forth. It is tempting to regard these as the beginnings of
applied science. But when one considers the people respon-
sible for these transformations, men like Watt, Arkwright,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Coke of Norfolk, the
Duke of Bridgewater, Boulton, Count Rumford, or McAdam,
it becomes clear that the movement was not in any real sense
applied sciencfe, but what may be called applied scientific

254

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

attitude. Science had not yet developed to the pitch at which
its results could be directly applied to practical problems,
as they* can now; anci the men responsible for the techno-
logical advances were not scientists or the products of
• scientific training, but practical men of business, or aristo-
crats, or public men interested in affairs. They were applying
ttot the findings of science, but the outlook of science.
The primary idea of science that Bacon and the founders of
the Royal Society put forward and stuck to in spite of ridi-
cule — the idea that by investigating natural phenomena,
however apparently insignificant, men could attain new
realms of knowledge and acquire new possibilities of control
over nature — together with the general idea resulting from
Newton's great work — the conception of the physical uni-
verse as a machine — those ideas so dominated the general
attitude and so transformed the intellectual climate that it
was natural for people to think technologically, in terms of
inventing new techniques for the better handling of old
problems, and of a general extension of man's control over
nature. • •

This shows how the organization of knowledge round a
broad general idea can, through constructive imagination
and correct insight, come to have force and effect long before
the idea has been worked out in detail. The idea of science
became practically effective well before the time when science
itself could be so. Key concepts like this stand at the top of
the hierarchy of the organization of thought ; they impose a
pattern on it and pull other less dominant ideas into place,
modifying them in relation to the whole pattern.

As an example of the organizing and transforming pro-
perties of dominant ideas, we see that the broad pattern of
thinking derived from the developing humanist, protestant,
and scientific traditions, gave a new»twist to the idea of the
intrinsic value of the human individual, earlier established
by Christianity, and transformed it so as to lead to the
nineteenth-century ideas of universal political democracy
and indiviHuarenterprise.

Many interesting parallels could be drawn between the
evolution of organisms and the evolution of organizations of
thought. Thus in the evolution of thought, rfew key concepts

255

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

may develop and|become dominant either by transcending
the previous dominant concepts, in the process assimilating
what of the old is relevant to the new; or by the extinction of
the old. This latter process may be due to the old concepts

to a very inferior position, since they are no longer workable
in the new situation; or the new may have to compete with
the old, eventually ousting it. Thus monotheism transcended
polytheism, but took from it the idea of personal divinities
behind phenomena; the idea of sympathetic magic- has for
all practical purposes ceased to count in Western civiliza-
tion, leaving the field open for the rise of unitary thought;
Christianity fought and extinguished polytheism and em-
peror-worship within the Roman Empire.

'A detailed historical study of the evolution and trans-
formation of human thought would also bring out many
interesting points. For instance, the fact that individual
thinkers may be in advance of history, and therefore unable
to translate their thought, albeit true in essence, into formu-
lations appropriate to the times and capable of exerting
practical effects on the process of human transformation.
Thus Goethe's unitary approach was too far in advance of
the analytic temper of his age to have much effect on science
or philosophy; Mendel's work had to wait for thirty years
before it found its, place in the process of science; Roger
Bacon was a premature scientist, and the' Emperor Frederic
II a premature humanist (phrases which recall that shocking
distortion of the idea of being before one's time — the smear
use of the phrase "premature anti-Fascist").

But I must pass on to my main topic. How are we to take
the new bold step which clearly seems nefcessary, of trans-
forming our system of thought in k way appropriate to the
problems of to-day? How best to act as midwife to deliver
the world of a new ideology, or, if we wish to avoid that
rather unpleasant word, a new system of ideas appropriate
to man's new situation?

What are the characteristics of this new situation which
would seem especially relevant to the task of adaptively
transforming the organization of our thought? First of all,
the world of mkn is beginning to emerge as unavoidably

simply disaj

falling from a dominant

256

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

destined to be one: in many particular aspects it has already
acquired a de facto unity. Yet in spite of this, it is also
abundantly split, especially in its thinking.

There a»e two main kinds of splits in thought. There is the
split between the thought of West and East (or non-West),
and there are the splits within the thought both of the West
and of the non-West.

The dominant idea-system of the non-West, the system of
Marxism and dialectical materialism, began by taking over
the emesging idea of process and the historical outlook from
Hegel and IJarwin. It then took the idea of scientific method
from the Western world, the materialist outlook from phys-
ical science and technology, and the economic and class
outlook (but not the individualist outlook) from the social
structure of the nineteenth-century West. In so doing, Maw-
ism accomplished a curious feat: it took over the basic
dualism pf Western European thought, but then proceeded
to transform it into a phony monism, a sham unitary system,
by denying validity to one of its two components, namely the
mental aspect. • ,

The Marxists, perhaps unconsciously, took over the idea
of their power structure from the dogmatic authorita-
rianism of medieval Christendom, the idea of nationalism
from the past of Russia, and the idea of universalism from
the Enlightenment; and these three ideas in combination
inevitably produced the idea of a monolithic state, exclusive
but expansionist, based on a dogmatic cultural and political
imperialism.

However, it is really only the facade of the Marxist system
that is monolithic, and behind it there are many splits. The
chief split is the result of the tension between the individual,
whose significance qua individual is denied or repudiated,
and the State as organized domination and as an object of
subservience. There is the split between the overt material-
ism of the system and its repressed mental and spiritual
aspects. Finally, there is the split in intellectual and cultural
life between tfte scientific and the dogmatic methods of
organizing and expressing thought; this was most strikingly
exemplified by the Lysenko controversy, but is apparent
also in many other fields of science, learning, and art.

i 257

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

But we in the West are more immediately concerned with
the splits of our own system. It would be possible to list a
large number of siich splits operating within our present
thought: the split betweqp nature and man, between subject
and object, between religion and science, between good and
evil, between free will and necessity, and dozens more.
However, these are all in a sense only symptoms or produces
of our one basic split, the fundamental dualism of Western
thought, which has resulted in a radical dissociation of
Western culture and personality. This has been in operation
ever since the time of Plato and Paul, though, it has been
manifested in all sorts of different ways in different periods :
the split persists, but its manifestations change according to
circumstances.

«What are the chief current manifestations of this basic
split? I would suggest, first of all, our over-specialization
as against the development of an all-round apprpach, too
much reliance on analysis into separate elements, too little on
unitary comprehension : in general terms, too much differen-
tiation and not 4 enough integration. A special case of this
is the over-emphasis on quantity, as against quality and
the significance of qualitative values. This over-emphasis, •
though most marked in scientific thought, has also been
characteristic of economics, and its value-debasing influence
has spread over many aspects of everyday life. To-day,
we are just beginning to realize that faf from the principle
of quantity being fundamental, it is not even inherent in
the nature of the universe. It is we ourselves who have put
quantity and number and mathematics into the universe.
W6 have done so by employing the technique of measure-
ment for our own purposes: measurement *and mathematical
formulation are essential for certain' kinds of comprehension,
and for the precision control which is needed for efficient
technology. Sir James Jeans' pronouncement that God must
be a mathematician was just another example of man's age-
old practice of creating God in his own image.

Then there has been the collapse of the traditional con-
fidence-giving beliefs, a collapse largely brought about
through the rise of science; while in the meantime science,
by clinging to the pretence that it was ethically and morally

258

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY
# •

neutral, has debarred itself from providing confidence or
from assisting in the # building up of new systems of belief
in plac£ of the old.

Meanwhile a further depth of iasecurity and fear — man's
•fear of his own self — has recited from the revelation of
sadism and bestiality which came to the surface in the last
war. As a consequence an old problem has been aggravated
— the projection of our own fears and repressed aggressivity
on to enemies, who can then serve as convenient scapegoats
for our own guilt. We are constantly searching for enemies,
or even creating them, in order to justify ourselves: and
that inevitably enlarges minor differences into major ones,
and makes any actual splits appear as apparently un-
bridgeable chasms and irreconcilable conflicts. One of the
reasons why the split between East and West is so gravef is
that we have ourselves magnified both its size and its gravity,
largely by thinking about our admittedly serious differences
in terms of black-and-white opposition. Many Westerners
have ceased to think of Russians as human beings: they
have become, in 'some non-rational absolute sense, just
"enemies".

Finally, there is the inhibition,' the negativist pessimism,
the energy-consuming conflict, and the essential destructive-
ness of all split thought, in place of the rational faith, the
positive facilitation, and the energy-releasing constructive-
ness which could Be ours if we could but unify our think-
ing—conflict as against unitary purpose, frustration as
against fruition.

This brings me back to the emergent idea-system, # the
new organization of thought, at whose birth we are assisting.
It takes account, Urst and foremost, of the fact that nature is
one universal process of evolution, self-developing and self-
transforming, and that it includes us. Man does not stand
over against nature; he is part of it. We men are that part
of the process which has become self-conscious, and it is our
duty and our destiny to facilitate the process by leading it
on to new'levels.

Our chief motive, therefore, will derive from the explora-
tion and understanding of human nature and the possibilities
of development and fulfilment inherent in tt, a study which

259

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

will of course include the limitations, distortions, and
frustrations to be avoided.

Such a philosophy might perhaps best be called Trans-
humanism. It is based on the idea of humanity attempting
to overcome its limitations aqd to arrive at fuller fruition; it
is the realization that both individual and social development
are processes of self-transformation. r-

The accumulation and organization of knowledge pro-
vides both the necessary basis and the main mechanism for
human transformation. In the light of that fact, t»uth can
be defined as the organization of our knowledge in greater
concordance with reality. The truth of the transhumanist
approach and its central conception is larger and more
universal than any previous truth, and is bound in the long
run to supersede lesser, more partial, or more distorted
truths, such as Marxism, or Christian theology, or liberal
individualism, or at any rate to assimilate those of their
elements which are relevant to itself.

In the light of such an overriding idea, the individual is
seen as a part of the social process, and a very important
part of it, just as man is seen as a very important part of the
cosmic process. He need no longer feel insulted by the fact
of death or by his own insignificance. Once he can grasp
that he is a part, and an operative part, of an enduring
process, he need not continue to compensate for his isolation
by mere personal ambition or by frantic deriving for superior
status or superior achievement. Once he grasps that his main
job is the optimum realization of the possibilities of his own
development, and that this, if well and truly accomplished,
will' at the same time inevitably facilitate or contribute to
the realization of the possibilities of society; and of mankind,
and of the cosmic process as a whtfle, he can 1 " acquire a new
sense of oneness with the rest of existence.

Various elements in other previous systems could and
should be taken over by the new system of thought, and
assimilated into its new pattern. There is the equal worth
or intrinsic value of all human beings, taken over from
Christianity and Western democracy; the importance of
the individual, taken over from the post-Renaissance era, the
scientific method of objective testing and the principle of

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

limited certitude, from the three centuries of natural science;
the importance of quantitative thinking, from technology
and precision control; the importance 'of quality, from the
arts and from philosophy; the application of the evolutionary
or historical idea to society, from Hegel and Marx; the value
of variety, both for individuals and for cultures, from social
anthropology; the idea of what we may call external ad-
venture — activism, exploration, control of nature — from the
Renaissance and natural science, from technology and sport,
and from Marxism; but also the correlative of this, on the
other side <jf the basic split, the idea of internal adventure —
contemplation, self-discipline, and control of oneself — from
the poets, artists, philosophers, and mystics of all continents.

Then we very much need to take over the ideas of
wholeness and harmony, largely from Oriental thought;
and, of course, the idea of order, law, and the necessary
hierarcl\y of authority from various sources in past history.

We may have to combine and adjust these elements in
various ways. For instance, one may combine the scientific
approach with the idea of hierarchy of authority, in the
affirmation that the final authority in the society of the future
will be that of knowledge: we cannot help but obey the
truth once we have successfully made the effort of clearly
identifying and recognizing it.

And so our new idea-system gradually begins to take
shape. Its central ordering concept is the idea that our human
destiny is to have the unique privilege and responsibility of
leadership in the process of evolution : there is one reality,
and man is its prophet and pioneer.

The long-term component of this is the discovery that the
process is universal, the process of the universe as a whole;
that it is a crdktive, open process with indefinite possibilities
of fulfilment still unrealized before it, one to be fully grasped
and comprehended only in the active process of realizing it.
This automatically heals the basic split between man and
nature. And the split between the individual and society is
healed by the'discovery that in self-fulfilment, through the
development of his personality, the individual is making his
particular contribution to the cosmic process.

What we may call the medium-term component, applic-

261

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

able to all human activities, whether of individuals or groups,
is the idea of participation in the enterprise of human evolu-
tion, contributing to the creative self-tt-ansformation of man.
The chief dynamic or central motive here is the exploration
of human possibilities and opportunities.

The short-term component, that which is immediately
applicable to the present situation, is the idea that the worlil
of man can be unified, but only on the basis of widespread
understanding of the meaning of unification and the need
for it. In other words, the human species, as an operative
agency, must become conscious of itself as a single process
which will only operate efficiently and freely if unified. And
this will only happen if the mass of people everywhere are
free to think about the problem; only when they are liber-
ated from the compulsions of ill-health, material misery, and
ignorance, will they be able to turn their attention away from
themselves and their particular frustrations and direct it on
to their relations to the world at large.

The chief dynamic here is, on the one hand, the already
widespread belief that science can provide at least a minimum
adequacy of food, health, and material well-being, with the
resultant demand for this on the part of the under-privileged
millions; and, on the other, the dawning belief that only
knowledge can set man truly free, with the resulting demand
for more knowledge, more science, and better education.

All this has direct implications for morality. Thus one
immediate moral duty is to try to identify and understand
the transformation of human development which the present
situation calls for, and to devise appropriate methods for
thin'king about it.

»

I must now speak about some of the implications and
applications of any such, unitary approach to the problem of
human destiny. The first is that we must learn to adopt a
unitary and evolutionary mode of thinking, in terms of total
pattern and continuing process.

This means using intuition and imagination — unitary
comprehension of truth and total significance, imagination
of new possibilities and of the consequences of new facts and
ideas — as well aathe analytic processes of reason. Of course,

262

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

they must be employed in conjunction with analytic reason
and with the laborious process of testing against reality. We
must learn to regard intellectual ailalysis and scientific
objectivity, not as the sole or m^in, or even as a separate
method of thinking, but as a^means for improving intuitive
comprehension and appreciation and their applications.

This is not easy. It is a new technique, a new type of skill
which we have to learn, like mathematical skill, or skiing, or
playing the piano. It demands time and effort and will
inevitably meet with resistance, not only from the vested
interests o/ other modes of thinking but from our natural
laziness and our existing mental habits and established
organizations of thought. But like other skills, it is a pattern
of activity which, once acquired, can be applied in a great
variety of detailed situations, and a capacity whose free
exercise provides new sources of satisfaction.

Throughout life we are confronted by the need for organ-
izing our experience and our thought. This is illustrated by
the way in which we organize our perceptions and our con-
cepts. The need here is to organize the primordial chaos of
sense-data with which our infant minds are confronted into
a first degree of order. When we say that we perceive an
object, we imply that wc have intuitively recognized a par-
ticular example of some general configuration of sense-data,
which we have unconsciously learned in our past lives to
associate in a singte general pattern. From one point of view,
a perceived object is thus a pattern of assumptions, as can
be demonstrated by experiments on illusions.

But the assumptions are also predictions, in that they have
all sorts of potential significance for our future. For instance,
we unconsciously predict of a heavy solid object that it will
need effort fb handle and can hurt us mechanically; of fire
that it may burn us; of food that it will taste good.

Concepts are organizations of thought involving gener-
ality. Into them too we often put assumptions : for instance,
the assumption that the immediate separability and tem-
porary persistence of what we call objects or things are
absolute, permanent, and essential to them; and, by exten-
sion, that abstract concepts like goodness or truth are also
permanent and absolute essences or qualities. Historically,

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

man appears to have generalized his notions of separateness
and persistence before he felt the need to generalize those
of wholeness or of togetherness in patterned relation, or
those of process or orderly change in development.

The need for this new mo4e of organizing our experience
is only now becoming fully apparent. We have at last dis-
covered that the reality with which we have to deal is c
hierarchy of patterned processes. We must now learn how
to recognize unit processes as we earlier learned to recognize
unit objects, to comprehend their characters as weJearned
to comprehend the properties of objects; in sa doing, we
shall learn to comprehend the patterns of development which
are inherently possible for them, and to make correct
assumptions or predictions about their effects.

The principle of causality and the formulation of regu-
larities in the shape of scientific laws represent, I suppose,
the highest achievements of the analytic and static method.
To-day we need, not to abolish them, but to transcend them.
This we can do through proper formulation of the principles
of relational adjustment and of order in terms of intrinsic
modes and forms of development.

Now for some of the implications of any such formula-
tions. I will begin with one relevant to psychiatry. In the
recent past there has been a tendency to minimize the
importance of reason by interpreting it mainly as rational-
ization, and to consider the organizatten of thought as
a secondary product of our instinctual and emotional life.
Thus any split thinking we may display has tended to be
regarded as a resultant, a symptom of basic personality
dissociation or primordial conflict, in conjunction with
social tensions and cultural splits. This, however, is turning
out to be incorrect : indeed, the tendency itself results from
our thought being unintsgrated.

We in the West grow up in a system of thought which
forces its own dissociation on to the unitary reality of things.
The very organization of our language, and all our habitual
ways of thinking, artificially dissociate real and ideal, object
and subject, quantity and quality, material and spiritual,
right and wrong, good and evil, "we" of the in-group and
"they" of the out^group, individual and society, intuitional

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

appreciation and intellectual analysis. How can *we expect
people to grow up whole in a world which is presented to
them already split by the organization df thought, and when
the main instrument we give them in education is one for
carving reality into separate slices? It is true that art is a
method for putting some of tlfe slices together again, some-
times even for presenting situations as wholes without pre-
liminary carving up; but it is also true that the entire trend
of the modern West has been to relegate art to an inferior
position^ vis-i-vis analytic science.

Of course I do not intend to imply that we should go to
the opposite extreme and say that either split personality or
social tension is only the symptom or resultant of split
thought. That would be to perpetuate the same basic error,
after merely turning it upside down. No, we must learn .to
think in unitary terms. Then we shall see thought as an
element # in the totality of human life and social transforma-
tion, inevitably related to and reacting with other elements
in the process — an element whose organization is in part
determined by the rest, but which also hejps to determine
the whole. For unitary thinking, nothing is merely cause or
merely effect, nothing solely symptom or solely determin-
ant; everything is related together in mutual interaction to
produce a characteristic pattern of development.

The pattern-process type of thinking inevitably substi-
tutes the idea of wholeness for anything in the nature of a
final goal or static absolute, and that of harmony for ideal
perfection. It is perhaps not irrelevant to recall that ety-
mologically the very word "health" means "wholeness".

In laying stress on conscious thinking, I do not wish to
minimize the importance of the unconscious. Indeed, the
unitary and evolutionary approach cannot draw so sharp a
distinction between the conscious ajjd the unconscious as is
done either by theology, by idealist philosophy, or by most
psycho-analytic formulations. For unitary thought, con-
scious thinking represents merely the most highly developed
and mosffull/ integrated process of organizing and dealing
with experience. Sometimes the process of the brain raises
itself above the threshold of consciousness, sometimes it
sinks below it; but so long as the entire brain is functioning,

i 265

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

the charac'cer of the process remains the same. It is only
through dissociation or active repression that any sharp
division is introduced between the c6nscious and«the un-
conscious.

Once we learn to see reality as a pattern of unitary pro-
cesses, freedom acquires a new meaning — the felt necessity
of unfrustrated development, the active creativity of selfe-
realization. Similarly with morality. What we have been used
to call "morality" is essentially superficial; it deals with
symptoms of maladjustment or dissociation. Morality now
becomes more or less synonymous with right direction, with
behaviour which facilitates the fullest and speediest realiz-
ation of characteristic development.

Our new unitary approach transforms the Marxists' claim
that "history is on our side". Marxism does its best to
remove thought and mind from any active share in deter-
mining events; our new approach, by putting them back into
the historical process as operative agents, enables us to
reformulate the phrase thus: "we are participants in the
adventure of history and can, if we think rightly, facilitate
its right development".

It gives the individual a different position in relation to
society. Against this new background he can satisfy his
longing to be in relation with something bigger than him-
self, in many ways. Since the development of human person-
alities is one of the most important ways in which the cosmic
process fulfils itself, he can feel united with it, not selfishly
withdrawn from it, in virtue of developing his own person-
ality or in realizing particular aspects of it fully, for instance
in aft or science or athletics. He can also obtain satisfaction
by consciously acting as a cog in the great dynamic machine,
by contributing his energy or his skill to its service. If he is
fortunate, he can do so by helping to lead the process on
through an effort of creative thought or scientific discovery;
or by bearing witness, as it is fashionable to say in literary
circles now, through literature or art to the significance, the
beauty, the interest, or the value of some aspect of the
process.

That remarkable man, Abdul Baha, wrote that "the
greatest prison isathe prison of self". That is true — but it is

266

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

only half the truth. It is true that the self can become the
individual's greatest prison. But for those who have found
themselves, discovering their unity with their own deeper
natures, ith others, and with tha rest of the universe, the
• self can be the root of unlimited freedom, the jumping-off
place for infinity. As Whitman said after he had found
himself,

... I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,

Greater than stars or suns,

Bounding, O soul, thou journcyest forth . . .

I would like to return a moment to the problem of
adapting the organization of our thought and its conscicfUs
formulations to reality and our knowledge of reality. An
obvious ^example is the way in which man has formulated
persistent regularities in nature. The old way, current right
through the Middle Ages, was to ascribe such regularities to
inherent principles or qualities; to-day we describe the regu-
larities that we discover, but describe them in the concentrated
form of scientific laws and theories. Thus the old principle
of there being four elements with different qualities has
been superseded by the particulate theory of matter and the
laws of atomic structure and combination: the old idea of
opposed qualities "of lightness and heaviness inherent in
matter has been superseded by the law of gravitation.

The very terms we use may express the type of organiza-
tion of our thought. For instance, the description of hugian
nature in the old terms of the different humours has now
long been superseded by description in terms of genetics,
endocrinology, neurology, psychosomatic types, and so on.
The advance of science has often depended on the super-
session of terminology involving a dualistic approach by one
based on a unitary approach. Thus, for instance, Newton
could not forpiulate the laws of gravitation before the
dualism of lightness versus heaviness had been superseded
by the unitary idea of greater or less degrees of weight or
mass.

The example of temperature shows ho# terminology is

267

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

not a mere matter of academic semantics but a method of
organizing and handling our experience. In the old days,
heat and cold were thought of as due to antagonistic prin-
ciples or qualities of hotness and coldness, inherent in
matter. Since the seventeenth century, that idea has been
superseded by the single concept of temperature, degrees
of one thing instead of a balance between two opposing
things. We can still usefully employ the terms "hot" and
"cold", but merely to denote certain aspects of our sub-
jective experience; the terms now only have significance
against the background of the single scale of temperature.

In a somewhat similar way, motion and rest have been
subsumed under the single head of relativity, though the
dualistic terminology is still useful within that framework.
The old opposed ideas of complete material occupancy of
space or its complete emptiness have been co-ordinated in
the gas laws under the single idea of degrees of presrure, and
in the material universe at large under that of degree of
concentration of matter. It is true that we can still use the
word "vacuum", but only in a rather derivative sense, of
extremely low concentration of matter in space.

One of the intellectual urgencies of to-day is to reorganize
thought, wherever it is still dualistic, under the head of new
unitary concepts. In many fields this will involve inventing
new terminology. For instance, how are we going to sub-
sume the apparently opposed qualities ok variety and unity?
Perhaps under the head of "pattern" or "degree of organ-
ization". The duality of cause and effect perhaps can be
subsumed under theOne ideaof the most probable tendencies
of a process. The ancient duality of good and evil can
perhaps be unified in relation to the degree of undistorted
self-development, and the opposed ideas or "friend" and
"enemy" under the one head of degree of participation in a
common effort.

Sometimes the very principle on which a concept organ-
izes experience and thought turns out to be incorrect, in the
sense of not being adapted to the nature of reality. If so, the
concept is assuredly destined to disappear, just as some
animal types were aoomed to extinction through not being
adapted to the rAality of the evolutionary situation. This has

268

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

actually occurred with our previous examples of the four
elements and the humours, and, in civilized countries, also
with tha concept of sympathetic magic.

I would like now to consider qertain aspects of religion,
notably the concept of God.^This affords one of the best
examples of the influence of the formulation or mode of
organization of knowledge on everyday life and practice. It
also illustrates how a concept with a high degree of organiza-
tion, which at first sight appears to be solely a unifying one,
may tuim out to be fundamentally dualistic.

The wor4 "God" formulates in one single term and con-
cept various features of man's experience, such as sacredness,
transcendent significance, permanence, ultimacy, personal
authority (including its functions such as responsibility and
loving care as well as justice and compulsion), and power.

So long as all this was formulated in the single concept of
a divine; ruler, man's idea of his destiny received a certain
slant, and rituals of propitiation were inevitable. Such a
formulation introduces a split into the world, between man
and God, between natural and supernatural. Indeed, the
concept of God was brought into existence by virtue of split
thinking.

Here I cannot forbear recounting an incident about my
grandfather, T. H, Huxley, at the inauguration of Johns
Hopkins University. His invitation to deliver the inaugural
address raised a stflrm, partly because he was a controversial
figure and partly because the ceremonies were conducted
without the customary opening prayer. President Isaiah
Bowman of Johns Hopkins, before his lamented death,
showed me a letter from a Congregationalist minister in New
York to a colleague of his in Baltimore apropos of the
situation. His words afe firmly engraved on my memory:
"'Twas an ill thing to have invited Professor Huxley; 'twere
better to have invited God; 'twould have been impossible
to have invited both." To-day, I am coming to believe that
it is impossible to invite the aid of the concept of unitary
thought without dropping our invitation to God.

The particular system of thought, feeling, and action
known as religion has always involved our knowledge,
beliefs, and assumptions about human destiny, and has

269

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

always been concerned with our relations with some power
apprehended as existing outside or beyond our life, irre-
spective of our individual desires — something not ourselves,
given in the nature of reality. Further, it always involves the
sense of psychological or spiritual significance and effective-
ness in life, and in particular what Otto has called the sense
of the sacred.

It seems to have begun by combining these two appre-
hensions — the apprehension of power with the apprehension
of sacredness — and so becoming concerned with what may
be called "sacred power". Historically, it has consisted of
the beliefs, actions, rituals, and experiences which express
and embody the significance and effectiveness of that power.

During history, religion has undergone protean transfor-
mations. This is inevitable, since its form and organization,
the modes in which it exercises its dynamic force, are con-
ditioned by the picture which men are able to formulate of
the sacred power underlying religion, and this in its turn
is conditioned by the knowledge available and the compre-
hension reached at any stage.

The main types of formulation so far made appear to be
as follows.

First of all, the magic stage. In this sacred power is
assumed to be widespread in nature, but especially con-
centrated in certain* striking objects and events, and in
certain rituals. Divinity, or "godness", ' if we may coin a
word, is thus thought of as diffused, and is not yet dis-
tinguished from mere sacredness.

The next stage is the animistic. In this, sacred power is
assumed to emanate from beings similar to human person-
alities ; but these are regarded as being soirtehow still in the
sacred or magic objects or events. Men projected certain of
their own capacities, of will and purpose, emotion and know-
ledge, into the elements of nature which were felt to be
sacred. The strangeness or other psychological effectiveness
which led to the ascription of sacred power to objects, events,
or rituals is now more definitely held to be divine, and some-
how organized into person-like forms, though ideas on this
point are usually vague and often contradictory, as one can
see by studying early forms of religion in the neolithic dawn

270

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

of civilization in the Middle East. Here "godness", the
quality of being divine, is beginning to be concentrated into
a large number of minor divinities, none of which, however,
have much resemblance to the godf* of more highly developed
• religions. Furthermore, "godjiess" may be projected into
men as well as into divinities, giving rise to heroes and demi-
gods and divine human personages such as the Egyptian
Pharaohs and, later, the Roman Emperors, not to mention
the bizarre contemporary phenomenon of "God" in the
person of Father Divine. Essentially the same process, of
endowing human beings with superhuman attributes, has
been applied to modern dictators, though here the quality of
sacredness is not usually used explicitly. But the practical,
though not the semantic result, is the same — a divine
human personage. 1 »

Next came the theological stage, in which* the diffuse
principle of divinity is not merely condensed into gods
of more definitely personal nature, but is to an increasing
extent placed behind instead of in phenomena. There are two
distinct substages* of this stage, the polytheistic and the
monotheistic, though again all transitions between them are
to be found. This seems to have been the mode of develop-
ment in the West, though various religions in the East,
notably pure Buddhism, have pursued a rather different
course.

Once personality is ascribed to divinity, the gods must be
treated as one would treat absolute human rulers, and wor-
ship, propitiation, and sacrifice inevitably become prominent
features of religion. They can and sometimes do appear in
the earlier preanimistic stages, but in much less developed
forms. •

Each of tliese main Stages clearly embodies a different
hypothesis or set of assumptions. The first makes the naive
assumption that a psychological quality resides in its object.
The second takes the elementary first step in pseudo-logical
thinking # (one # taken by most children at an early stage),
namely, tfie assumption that objects or events which affect us,
or operate so as to produce effective results in our lives, can

1 Since this was written, Stalin has been brusquely "de-deified" by his
successors. #

271

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

do so because they are animated by something akin to human
personality, endowed with will, emotion, and knowledge.
In so doing, it utilizes the psychological mechanism of
projection. ,

The third stage takes th^ second stage farther, in two
steps. In the first, man is forced to come to terms with his
increasing empirical knowledge about material phenomena;
he realizes that material objects, however sacred, cannot
well be actually animated by personality, and therefore
places divine personalities behind the objects. The second
step, from polytheism to monotheism, seems to be taken
partly under the pressure of an inner psychological logic, a
felt need for unity, partly as a result of realizing the objective
fact of the interrelation of all phenomena.

<To-day, a fourth stage is in process of being reached. The
critical intellect is realizing that these different ways of
envisaging sacred power are all merely hypotheses or
assumptions, and almost wholly subjective; that the earlier
ones— of mana, magic, animism, and multiple divinity —
have failed to be* verified and indeed have been disproved;
and that the third, of a single God, is in danger of suffering
the same fate. The theistic assumption cannot make the
positive advance towards scientific respectability, since it is
objectively unverifiable (except by way ot so-called miracu-
lous occurrences whieh the scientific mind of to-day refuses to
accept as evidence) ; and negatively it is Sn danger of being
rendered untenable by virtue of advances in knowledge. In
this new emergent stage, human minds, critical in the light
of new knowledge, are no longer able to accept a God as a
working hypothesis to explain phenomena, still less to accept
Christian or any other theology as a scientific theory of
human destiny. Laplace told Napoleon that God was no
longer a necessary hypothesis in celestial mechanics : to-day
God is becoming an erroneous hypothesis in all aspects of
reality, including man's spiritual life.

The first result of this change in attitude and organiza-
tion of thought has tended to be negative. Sometimes the
baby is thrown out with the bath; the rejection of the idea
of a personal God comes to involve the more or less complete
rejection of whabare generally termed spiritual values and

272

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

realities, as in orthodox Marxism, or at least the Rejection of
their efficacy or relevance to practical affairs, as in laisser-
faire ec^pomics and hard-shell rationalism. Often it has led
to the raHical separation, both in thought and practice, of
the material and practical frcpi the sacred and spiritual, of
business and politics from religion and morality. This is the
phase through which many people are now passing in the
Western world, and which the representatives of estab-
lished religious systems characterize as "irreligion" or "loss
of faith!'.

Howeve/, with the development of a fully naturalistic
outlook the transformation of thought is capable of passing
from a negative to a positive phase. Men can cast off the
blinkers of dualism. They find that, after all, spiritual
experiences, including the sense of the sacred, are an im-
portant part of reality. They realize that it wafi merely the
assumptions about the relations of spiritual experience with
the rest of reality which they were unable to accept. They
also realize that, once the formulation of gods, as personal
•beings behind phenomena, had been mad$, and dissociated
thinking had built its artificial fence between God and nature,
the transition to monotheism was not merely logically but
empirically indicated, as a step towards expressing the real
unity and continuity of the cosmos, but was an incomplete
step, since the concept of God itself involves dualism. Re-
garded in this light, the fall of man is not a fall from good to
evil, but a falling apart of the universe into good and evil,
consequent upon man having split it into Nature and God.

Even when under the influence of a prevailing dualism,
men have been unwilling to put all the elements of divinity
on the other side of the fence they have erected between
nature and tHe supernatural. Priest-kings endowed with the
attributes of god, rulers deified during their lifetime, from
the Roman Emperors to Joseph Stalin, manage to keep some
of the elements of divinity on the natural side of the fence:
the doctrine of the incarnation is a brilliant device to put
back some of God into man : all theories of divine immanence
and of pantheism attempt to take down the fence itself; and
the great mystics have learnt by experience that divinity is
to be found within us.

*73

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

One way in which religion can properly be described is
as man's conception of his destiny. To-day, this can be
formulated in a unitary way, as a spear-heading ;rnd con-
densation of evolution, by realizing new possibilities for life.
Such a unitary formulation dpes not take the sacred power
from where it belongs — namely, in particular relations be-
tween particular human beings and particular objects and
events — and erroneously project it into a single supernatural
being. It can recognize the plurality and multiple variety of
the world and of life, and yet superimpose unity upon it by
way of a unitary formulation. *

Man inevitably discovers that existence involves mystery.
Perhaps the latest revelation of inherent mystery is the dis-
covery by science of the unexpected unity of all nature. All
the realities which were taken out of nature and put together
in the supernatural concept of God can now be put back into
the natural process. And there, if their relation to the whole
process is properly grasped, they can exert at least as much
and perhaps more force than they did under the old dis-
pensation.

I must now pass to some of the implications of such a
view for science. It seems to me we are in danger of intro-
ducing a new split into thought by thinking of science as in
any sense an unchanging entity, separate from the rest of
reality, and possessing a different kind of validity and
certainty from that of other modes of orgdhizing experience.

We speak of scientific certainty; on the other hand, the
growth of science has undoubtedly led at the present time
to the growth of uncertainty. This is due partly to the
rapidity of new discovery, and to its exploitation by sensa-
tionalism. The mere fact of realizing how rftany surprising,
disconcerting discoveries science haS made in the last fifty
years, and yet how much we still do not know, is also
unsettling. Finally there is the uncertainty caused by the
conflict between scientific knowledge and traditional beliefs,
and also by the contradiction between scientific method and
the methods of thinking which appear natural to the bulk
of the community. Under this last head I include not only
the naive attitudes of the relatively uneducated masses but
also the thinking of those educated in the humanist or

274

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

religious tradition. This last conflict will continue* so long as
people fail to understand that science is a limited activity,
though >(ith an unlimited field, immensely successful within
that field and eventually influencing other fields, but not
• directly applicable to aesthefic creation or appreciation,
intuitive comprehension, or spiritual experience.
• The unsettling effect of science can be overcome if we
stress its other effect, in establishing an increasing body of
increasingly accurate knowledge. That is something which is
often forgotten by the critics of science. It is the outcome
of the principle of limited but increasing certitude. This is
the underlying strategical principle on which the scientific
method operates. Tactically, science proceeds by means of
working hypotheses, which are later tested out by checking
against factual observation. The campaign for certitude then
proceeds to organize prediction by formulati»g observed
regularities in the form of scientific laws, and to organize
comprehension by formulating our ideas in the form of
scientific theories.

Scientific laws, 'let us remind ourselves^ are never more
than an approximation to the truth, though the approxima-
1 tion may be an extremely close one; and scientific theories
never have more than a limited comprehensiveness. But the
scientific method *is by far the best so far discovered for
acquiring and organizing natural knowledge.

Its effectivenesses at once shown by reminding ourselves
of some of the ideological and moral effects of the advance
of scientific knowledge. As examples we may take the real-
ization that earthquakes, droughts, and other physical
catastrophes are natural phenomena, and not due to divine
intervention or supernatural agency; or the realization that
disease and death are dfle to infective agents, not to divine
punishment or witchcraft. We have only to read Boccaccio's
Decameron to realize what horror and fear was aroused in
civilized Europe only a few centuries ago by this unap-
prehended mystery of epidemic disease. We have only to take
a plane to" Africa to realize that the tribal African to-day still
firmly believes that no death is ever natural, but must always
be due to witchcraft.

There is the realization that all objects, organic or in-

275

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

organic, consist of the same matter and operate by the same
energy, so that neither life nor man is set apart from the rest
of the world in these two basic respects; the fact/that the
mind is not an incalculable extranatural entity, but develops
and operates according to ascertainable laws or rules, and
that its workings can most fruitfully be regarded as one
aspect of the unitary organism; the fact that man has not
been created helpless or as a slave of some external auth-
ority, but is the most creative part of the total creative
process.

It is thus urgent that we should take this basic scientific
principle of limited but increasing certitude, constantly
checked against the facts of nature, and adapt and transpose
it for use in other fields — limited but increasing Tightness
in rthe field of morality, in the place of absolute rightness as
against absolute wrongness; limited but increasing signifi-
cance in the field of art, in the place of right or good art as
against wrong or bad art; limited but increasing compre-
hension in the field of religion, in place of the false absolutes
of authoritarian , dogma, in which absolute "truth" is set
against absolute "error"; limited but increasing faith and
confidence, checked and validated by experience, in place of
the false certitudes of purely subjective feeling.

Finally, let us remember that science is hot an unchanging
entity: it evolves and changes its character like everything
else. Indeed it is becoming clear that Science itself needs
considerable overhauling and transformation. As indicated
earlier, it needs to devise methods for dealing with pattern,
process, and quality, as well as with isolated elements, static
or reversible events, and quantity. And in so doing it is
bound to abandon its isolationism, its pretence of sovereign
separateness and its pretence of being moralfy neutral, for
it will find itself operating as part of the total human process,
in common harness with emotion, value, and purpose.

Thus, one might seek to apply the unitary outlook to
political science. The main point is that, in the light of our
present knowledge, the only way to envisage the state or the
community is as an organization to facilitate and promote
the development of its members and the fullest realization
of their individual potentialities. This, as is immediately

276

KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY, AND DESTINY

evident, knocks the bottom out of Fascism and Stalinist
Communism and any other kind of totalitarianism or State-
worshipv Furthermore, it puts politicaf nationalism into its
proper place and perspective as t a temporary expedient, a
means which may sometimes ^ave to be employed to realize
certain ends.

• Then there is the gathering belief, based on the awareness
of what science has already done and the resultant myth of
scientific omnipotence, that science could provide minimum
standards of food, health, and material comfort for every-
body; and, the gathering demand, by the great under-
privileged majority, for the raising of the standards of their
life.

These facts have direct implications for the great powers,
and particularly for the United States as the greatest power
in the present world: but the implications musfrbe drawn in
the ligbt of a unitary approach. The United States can
assume a decisive leadership in the present crisis only if it can
see itself in relation to the process of transformation as a
whole. It could provide essential leadershipjn facilitating the
transformation of the world to higher minimum standards
of material life for the under-privileged and more freedom
for the exploited and backward : it will inevitably do so if
it can learn to think of them and itself as joint participants
in man's global adventure. The great powers must learn to
see themselves in the role of an active partner in this joint
enterprise. Their leadership will consist partly in introduc-
ing to the backward, upsurging masses the idea that material
standards are only the basis for a fuller development, the
necessary foundation on which further possibilities of khow-
ledge and enjoytnent may be realized; for to concentrate on
material standards alorfe would inevitably degenerate into a
scramble for material goods, unless it is transcended by the
more inclusive motive of realizing total human possibilities.

It is not by exploiting economic concessions or by estab-
lishing bases or by purely military victories that a nation
will win" Indeed, "winning" is not the right word: world
affairs are not a game of football, and mere victory, whatever
General MacArthur may say, is not the ultimate aim of war.
What the United States and other great powers should aim

277

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

4

at is to succeed — in providing leadership and in facilitating
right development for the world at large; and this it can do
if it successfully provides good-will and expert assistance,
material and mental aid, tp the world's development.

I will conclude with the ideji with which I began, the idea
of human destiny. We can no longer envisage human destiny
in such terms as the will of God set over against the sinful
will of man, or as the plan of a divine creator frustrated by
the imperfections and wilfulness of his creation. Human
destiny is to participate in the creative process of develop-
ment, whereby the universe as a whole can realise more of
its potentialities in richer and greater fulfilments.

For man to fulfil his destiny truly and effectively, the first
step must be one of discovery. He must learn to recognize
and identify the systems of transformation operating in
reality, the nature of the self-creative process as a dynamic
organization, its form, and the modes of the transformation
of that form to new and richer forms; and in particular the
particular transformation now under way.

Once the nature and character of a process has been truly
and effectively grasped, prediction, in the sense of justifiable
assumptions on which to base purposive action, at once
becomes possible, for the laws governing the development
of such a system are implicit in its nature and form. In truly
unitary thought, effectively adjusted to deal with the unitary
processes of nature, to recognize is to be aWe to comprehend,
and to comprehend is to be able to act. Any such new formu-
lation of thought will need time and effort to achieve: but
in it, once achieved, thought will become involved with
action, and science acquire a morality in helping man to
recognize his destiny.

278

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM 1

. Among the many things for wliich T. H. Huxley is re-
-^Vmembered is the fact that he coined the word agnostic as
a. label for himself. I would guess that to the majority of
people to-day that word connotes a rather arid rationalism,
something essentially negative and even destructive. Yet in
point of, fact it was only the philosophical obverse of his
belief in sconce, and did not prevent him from cherishing
a strong and positive faith.

In one of his essays he equates the principle underlying
agnosticism with the ancient prescription "Try all things:
hold fast by that which is good", and calls it "the funda-
mental axiom of modern science". In his remaikable letter
to Charlgs Kingsley he proclaims the very positive thesis that
"the most sacred act of a man's life is to say and to feel 'I
believe such and such to be true'". He was, in fact, deeply
preoccupied with the central problems of .human destiny,
and in his Romanes Lecture on Evolution and Ethics summed
•up that life-long preoccupation in a justly celebrated but
now out-moded exhortation : "Let us understand, once and
for all, that the efliical progress of society consists not in
imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from
it, but in combating it."

The problems of human destiny concern us to-day as
acutely as they concerned T. H. Huxley. Indeed, I could
have defined my subject as the relation between science and
man's beliefs concerning his place in the cosmic process*

The problems*are as basic as ever: but we look at them
from a somewhat different position. The main difference is
that whereas T. H. Huxley never quite rid himself of the
dualistic premiss of his age, we are perforce monists, in
the sense of believers in the oneness of things, the unitary
nature of reality; we see ourselves, together with our science

1 The material of this essay was compiled in preparation for the Huxley
Memorial Lecture at Birmingham University in 1953, and formed the basis
for the third of the series of Dyason Lectures delivered in Australia later in
the same year.

279

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

and our beliefs, as an integral part of the cosmic process,
instead of somehow outside it. And from this new angle of
approach we obtain 'a new view of th'e cosmic landscape, a
new picture of our place in it.

Man is always concerned' about his destiny — that is to
say, his position and role in the universe, and how he is to
maintain that position and fulfil that role. All societies of
men develop some sort of organs for coping with this prob-
lem—organs for orientating their ideas and emotions and
for constructing attitudes of mind and patterps of belief
and behaviour in relation to their conception of their destiny.
All these social organs concerned with destiny can, I think,
properly be included under the head of religions. Even if
scyne of them are exceedingly primitive and consist of little
but magic rituals, while others are highly developed and
claim to be entirely rational, they are all, from m Haitian
voodoo to Roman Catholicism, from neolithic fertility
religions to Stalinist Communism, concerned with this same
general function* In the same sort of way> the tube-feet of a
starfish, the legs of a horse, the pseudopods of an amoeba,
and the wings of a bird, though profoundly different from •
each other, are all animal organs concerned with the same
general function of locomotion. '

Homo sapiens — man, for short — is a unique organism,
whose maintenance and transformations depend primarily
on psycho-social mechanisms, in which mental activities play
a dominant role; while those of all other organisms depend
primarily on the biological mechanisms of heredity, muta-
tiori, and natural selection.

Although the terms mind and mental have been bedevilled
by differences in common usage, I shall emplby them, faute
de mieuxy in the widest possible sense, to describe all activities
involving awareness, from cognitive to emotional awareness,
from purely intellectual to spiritual and aesthetic, from in-
tensely conscious activities to those that are subconscious or
even, in Freudian terminology, unconscious. It would be
convenient to have some new term, uncontaminated by
earlier modes of thought, to characterize all psycho-social
mechanisms in which communicable mental activities play

280

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

a predominant role. If so, I suggest the term noetic; and I
shall sometimes employ it with this connotation.

Religions are thus noetic organs of evolving man. Their
special function concerns his position and role in the uni-
verse, his relations to the rest of jhe cosmos, and in particular
his attitude to the powers or forces operating in it, including
those of his own nature : or in the fewest possible words, with
his attitude towards his destiny. Furthermore, this attitude
always involves the sense of sacred power in some form or
other — a. feeling of reverence, or mystery, or wonder, or
transcendent power or beauty. To perform this function,
a religion requires some interpretative beliefs, notably about
the spiritual powers in the universe; some picture of the
cosmos in which man's destiny is cast; some mobilization of
the emotional and spiritual forces at work within man him-
self; some form of ritual, in the widest sense of the term, to
express and maintain this religious attitude; and some
relation to the moral and practical problems of existence,
both individual and social.

• The beliefs may be mere assumptions Jacking precise
definition, as in those underlying the magic rituals of many
primitive peoples; or they may be elaborate systems involv-
ing precise intellectual formulation, like the creeds of Chris-
tian theology; or they may be post-hoc rationalizations, quite
subsidiary to the ritual elements of the religion, as in Chinese
ancestor-worship. 1 The inner psychological forces may be
given violent expression as part of a sacred ritual, as in
orgiastic cults like that of Dionysos or in some aspects of
Haitian voodoo; they may be sternly disciplined, or even
repudiated, as in some Protestant sects or in the various
forms of asceticisrft ; or they may be cultivated and developed
so as to provicfe new fulfilments, as in the various systems
of mysticism. The ritual may be magical, or dramatic,
or symbolic; it may consist in formalistic observances,
in prayers, in orgiastic releases, in mass celebrations, like
those of the Holy Year or the rallies and parades of Nazism
and Communism, in pilgrimages, or in sacrifices and rites
of propitiation. And the relation to practical existence may

1 See A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society,
Cohen and West, London, 1952, pp. 1 53f.

28l

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

be one df escape, as in asceticism or pure Buddhism; or of
full participation, as in classical Greece or the city-states
of ancient Mesopotamia; or of rendering unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's^ as in usual Christian practice.

The form of the beliefs about the spiritual forces at work
in the universe colours and affects the rest of the religious
system. The three chief hypotheses on which past religious
belief-systems have in fact been erected are the magic hypo-
thesis, the animist or spirit hypothesis, and the daimonic
or god hypothesis. 1

Both the magic hypothesis and the god hypqthesis appear
to be based on the well-known psychological tendency to
projection. Putting the matter rather crudely, man has
experiences of sacred power. On the magic hypothesis, he
projects the sacred power into phenomena, into some ex-
ternal object or event, including rituals and forms of words.
On the god hypothesis, he projects the sacred pover behind
phenomena, and clothes it in the garb of a personality.

The magic hypothesis leads man to ascribe practical
efficacy and importance to dramatic rituals like rain-making
ceremonies, to witchcraft with its spells and curses, and to
omens and auguries. The god hypothesis, with its central
idea of personal spiritual powers behind phenomena, leads
naturally and almost universally to the iclea that misfortunes
like earthquakes and pestilences are divine punishments for
sin, 2 to the belief that gods need propitiation by sacrifices and
offerings and glorification by worship, and that they can be
influenced by petitionary prayers. The combination of magic
and god hypotheses may produce singular results, such as
the development of prayer-wheels worked by wind- or
water-power in Tibet.

The bases of the spirit hypothesis appear to be more com-
plex; but its effects on practice are equally obvious. When

1 Daimonic is a useful term to cover all classes of superhuman spiritual
beings, whether good or evil or ethically neutral, including both gods and
devils of various kinds and various degrees of importance, angels, local spirits,
tutelary deities, etc. See R. Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, McGraw-
Hill, London and New York, 1941, I, p. 92, on "the Concept of the
Daimonic Universe".

2 See T. D. Kendrick, The Lisbon Earthquake, Methuen, London, 1956.

282

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

sacrecfpower is supposed to reside in the spirits oPthe dead,
we may find special rituals of burial designed to keep the
dead from plaguing the living, or the ciilt may develop into
an elaborate system of ancestor-worship. And of course
.when religious beliefs are largely concerned with survival in
a supernatural world, the practical effects may be enormous.
Vfe need only think of the pyramids, and the economic
importance of the mortuary priesthood of ancient Egypt; or
of the role of Indulgences in helping to bring about the
Reformation.

Many religions utilize all these belief-hypotheses. Thus
in Roman Catholicism, while the god hypothesis is central
and basic, the spirit hypothesis plays a not inconsiderable
part, for instance in assigning an important role to the spirits
of dead saints; and certainly for most Protestants as well as
for rationalists, Catholic beliefs about the efficacy of relics
and pilgrimages and various ritual observances involve the
magic hypothesis. Furthermore, the three hypotheses often
combine to exert a joint effect on religious attitude and
practice. • %

The belief in spirits, and still more markedly the belief
in gods, involves another basic hypothesis — the hypothesis
of dualism. "In general, theistic religions are based on the
assumption of a dJalism between the material and the non-
material or spiritual. 1 For brevity's sake I shall use the term
supernatural ism to include the combination of the god
hypothesis and the spirit hypothesis which characterizes
most higher religious systems.

An almost universal and perhaps inevitable consequence
of the god hypothesis in its developed forms is the assump-
tion of absolute truth. A monotheistic religion almost invari-
ably claims tcf be in possession of the absolute truth about
human destiny: the fact that rival.religions make similar
claims is disposed of by affirming that they are "false", while
only one's own religion is "true".

Furthermore, theistic religions usually adopt the hypo-
thesis of 'revelation : they assert that the truth has been
revealed in a set of god-given commandments, or a holy

1 For the historical development of dualism between matter and spirit,
see V. G. Childe, Society and Knowledge, Allen and Utowin, London, 1956.

283

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

book, or divinely inspired ordinances. The beliefs of theistic
religions thus tend inevitably to be authoritarian, and also to
be rigid and resistant to change. Whefi religious change does
occur, as is sometimes inevitable in our changing human
world, it often involves merely the substitution of one
authoritarianism for another, as when the Protestant
reformers set up the authority of the Bible in place of that-of
the Church or the Pope.

Hypotheses are valuable and necessary instruments of the
human mind for its dual task of adding to and organizing
its knowledge. But they become dangerous wfcen they are
erected into absolute affirmations or dogmas, and pernicious
when they claim immunity from constant testing against
fact.

» The magic hypothesis in its straightforward form can no
longer be seriously entertained, even though elements of it
continue to colour theistic religious practice, and though it
survives in many forms among the illiterate, and has given
birth to new versions of old superstitions (such as astrology
and numerology) among the half-educated.

The supernatural hypothesis, taken as involving both the
god hypothesis and the spirit hypothesis and the various*
consequences drawn from them, appears to have reached the
limits of its usefulness as an interpretation of the universe
and of human destiny, and as a satisfactory basis for religion.
It is no longer adequate to deal with r the phenomena, as
revealed by the advance of knowledge and discovery. This is
the crux or the so-called conflict between science and religion,
which should more properly be described as a conflict between
the' progress of established knowledge and a particular type of
religious hypothesis.

It would be interesting to discuss the hist6ry of this con-
flict, and to show how, for instance, the advance of know-
ledge, both in the natural and the human sciences, has led
to modifications in the god hypothesis — how the Newtonian
and the Darwinian revolutions combined to push the Deity
ever farther into the background, until his only role in cosmic
affairs appeared as that of initial creator of a self-running
machine; how, with our increasing knowledge of the orderly
working of nature, the idea of miraculous intervention has

284

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

grown'progressively less and less tenable, until if has now
become repugnant and indeed intellectually immoral to a
growing -body of thoSe trained in the 'scientific tradition;
how theistically minded astronomers and philosophers have
been reduced to presenting god in the unsatisfying role of a
cosmic mathematician, or the nebulous guise of an absolute
principle. But I have no space for such as excursus and can
merely state the plain fact that the advance of knowledge is
making supernaturalism in general," and the god hypothesis
in particular, untenable for an increasing number of educated
people. #

The vital question is this: Can we find any other basic
hypothesis about the spiritual forces at work in the cosmos
on which to build our beliefs? Such a hypothesis must square
with the facts of established knowledge, and must be re-
ligious in the broad sense, in being relevant to tfie problem
of humap destiny and to man's experiences of sacredness.

Marxist Communism has adopted the hypothesis of
materialism, which denies any real importance or indeed
validity to spiritual* forces. For Marxism, nyntal or psycho-
logical activities in general are essentially epiphenomena,
•always the resultant and never the cause of "objective"
material events. I am, of course, aware that, through a com-
plicated process of line-spun dialectic, Marxist philosophers
manage to rescue a good many psychological phenomena
from this wholesalefjettisoning and keep them safely aboard
the Communist ship; and that in practice a great deal of
attention is paid to activities like art and philosophy and
science, which to most of us would appear to involve a major
mental or noetic component. But the underlying hypothesis
is explicitly materialist; and this fact has all kinds of im-
portant consequences, tfot least among which will be its
ultimate consequences for the religious efficacy of Com-
munism, as a system of beliefs and attitudes concerning
human destiny.

Again it would be interesting to pursue the subject; but
again I haVe no space. I would only say that the materialist
hypothesis, in denying the intrinsic validity of mental and
spiritual factors and their importance in the cosmos, is to me
as erroneous as, though more sophisticated than, the naive

285

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

notions fif the magic hypothesis, which projects spiritual
force into material events. It is still, perhaps unconsciously,
dualist, and, through failing to take account of a large body
of fact, is as untenable r as the supernaturalist hypothesis.
But it has provided the ba^is for the first important non->
theistic religion of modern times, and its existence makes the
task of finding an adequate alternative even more urgent.*

I submit that the discoveries of physiology, general
biology, and psychology not only make possible, but neces-
sitate, a naturalistic hypothesis, in which there is no»room for
the supernatural, and the spiritual forces at jvork in the
cosmos are seen as a part of nature just as much as the
material forces. What is more, these spiritual forces are one
particular product of mental activity in the broad sense, and
ipental activities in general are seen to have increased in
intensity ami importance during the course of cosmic time.
Our basic hypothesis is thus not merely naturalistic as
opposed to supernaturalist, but monistic or unitary as
opposed to dualistic, and evolutionary as opposed to static.

Another postulate of modern thought is that truth is not
revealed once and for all, but has to be progressively dis-
covered. This is itself a scientific discovery, and one of the?
first magnitude. It is also an inevitable consequence of our
basic hypothesis of evolutionary naturalism; and the fact
that modern science has resulted in the progressive dis-
covery of more truth is a confirmation <tf that hypothesis.

It may well be that future discoveries, in parapsychology
for instance, will alter our views on the nature of the relation
between material and mental or spiritual events and activi-
ties; but meanwhile the monistic evolutionary hypothesis
best meets the known facts, and its implications need to be
followed out and tested in detail, ill full confidence that they
will be fruitful.

In the light of such a view, religions, like sciences or
philosophies, are creations of man, and gods are products of
the human mind just as much as scientific "laws of nature".
The comparison is illuminating. Both gods and scientific
generalizations must be derived from experience and must
have some basis in reality. The question is how much of a
basis: how far do they correspond with reality, how accur-

286

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

ately do* they embody experience? The laws of naturft did not
exist as such before men began scientific investigation : what
existed was the welter* of natural events, and the laws of
nature are constructions of human thought which attempt
to give comprehensible general formulations of how those
events operate. Similarly gods Aid not exist as such before
men built up theistic religious systems: what existed was the
clash of natural forces, physical and spiritual, including those
of the human mind, and the gods are attempts to give a
comprehensible formulation of these forces of destiny. The
difference — |jut an important one — is that, in the history of
religion, gods correspond to men's pre-scientific construc-
tions in the investigation of natural phenomena — products
of imaginative speculation like the four "Elements", or
the principle of the Humours, or the idea of spontaneous
generation.

With. evolutionary naturalism as our basic hypothesis, we
can begin exploring the new religious situation of our
twentieth century, without spending more time in the un-
profitable task of pointing out the theoretical or practical
inadequacies of earlier religious systems.
• Twentieth-century man, it is clear, needs a new organ for
dealing with destiny, a new system of religious beliefs and
attitudes adapted to the new situation in which his societies
now have to exist, including the new knowledge which they
have discovered and? amassed. The radically new feature of
the present situation may perhaps be stated thus: Earlier
religions and belief-systems were largely adaptations to cope
with man's ignorance and fears, with the result that they
came to concern themselves primarily with stability *of
attitude. But the need to-day is for a belief-system adapted
to cope with His knowledge and his creative possibilities;
and this implies the capacity to meet^nd to inspire change.
In other words, the primary function of earlier systems was
of necessity to maintain social and spiritual morale in face of
the unknown : and this they accomplished with a consider-
able measure of success. But the primary function of any
system to-day must be to utilize all available knowledge in
giving guidance and encouragement for the continuing
adventure of human development.

287

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

I am here treating of religious systems as social organs
whose function it is to adjust man to his destiny. No previous
systems could perform this function with full adequacy, for
the simple reason that no previous age had sufficient know-
ledge to construct an adequate picture of the drama of
destiny or of its protagonist, man. The present epoch is the
first in which such a picture could begin to take shape. This
is due to the fact that scientific investigation has now for the
first time begun to cover the entire range of phenomena
involved in human destiny. Beginning with th§ physical
phenomena and proceeding to the biological, it has now
invaded the social, psychological, and historical fields, and
is at last being forced to deal with the phenomena of values.
Immense tracts of ignorance are still to be explored and
^wait annexation to the growing empire of knowledge; but
we can already affirm that the cosmos is unitary, that it is a
process of transformation in time, and that values apd other
products of mental and spiritual activity play an important
operative role in that sector of the process with which we are
involved. c

More specifically, the present is the first period in the
long history of the earth in which the evolutionary process,
through the instrumentality of man, has taken the first step
towards self-consciousness. In becoming aware of his own
destiny, man has become aware of that of the entire evolu-
tionary process on this planet: the two fire interlocked. This
is at once an inspiring and a sobering conception.

The present age also differs from all earlier ages in the
increased importance of science and its universal extension.
There should no longer be any talk of conflict between
science and religion. Between scientific knowledge and cer-
tain religious systems, yes: but between science as an in-
creasing knowledge of nature and religion as a social organ
concerned with destiny, no. On the contrary, religion must
now ally itself wholeheartedly with science. Science in the
broad sense is indispensable as the chief instrument for
increasing our store of organized knowledge and under-
standing. Through evolutionary biology it has already in-
dicated the nature of human destiny. Scientific study is
needed to give c religion a fuller understanding of destiny,

288

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

and to help in devising better methods for its* detailed
realization. Meanwhile, science must not allow any ancient
prejudices against certain aspects of previously established
religions to hold it back from giving its aid when called
upon. f

Industry and agriculture, after a good deal of resistance
on* the part of so-called practical men, have already dis-
covered the indispensability of science, both pure and
applied. It now remains for religion, togther with other
social activities, to make the same discovery. For without
the fullest avd from science we will assuredly not be able tc
bring into being a religion adequate to our needs, any more
than we could have brought into being an aeroplane capable
of flying or antibiotics capable of killing disease-germs.

Once it is realized that religions are the product of man.'<
creative mind, working on the data provided fcy persona
and coHactive experience, the need for enlisting science ir
the religious task becomes apparent. In any event, the march
of knowledge and events has made it imperative to reach s
new formulation of human destiny and a uew attitude to-
wards it. This is a task for the human species as a whole, tc
•which all can bring their contribution. The co-operation oi
the religiously minded and the scientifically trained is
essential for its adequate performance.

The contribution which science can make is two-fold. Il
can contribute an erfbrmous body of hard-won, tested, organ-
ized knowledge; and also a spirit of disinterested devotion
to truth, and a willingness to apply this spirit to any problem,
irrespective of prejudices or possible consequences. An
immense co-operative effort of creative discussion is needed.
In what follows # I submit the thesis which I am calling
evolutionary humanism to that discussion, fully conscious
that, though based on the accumulated results of unnum-
bered others, it is only the personal contribution of one
biologist.

In the first place, evolutionary biology has given us a new
view, impossible of attainment in any earlier age, of our
human destiny. Our destiny is to be the agent of the evolu-
tionary process on this planet, the instrument for realizing
new possibilities for its future.

k 289

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

The picture of the universe provided by modern science
is of a single process of self-transformation, during which
new possibilities ctfn be realized. Thfere has been creation
of new actualities during cosmic time: it has been progres-
sive, and it has been a self-creation.

The entire cosmos, in all its appalling vastness, consists of
the same world-stuff. Following William James, I use this
awkward term deliberately in place of matter^ because
"matter" is commonly* opposed to "mind", whereas it is
now apparent that the world-stuff is not restricted to material
properties. 1 When organized in certain ways-r— as, for in-
stance, in the form of human bodies and brains — it is capable
of mental as well as material activities. Furthermore, the
study of animals shows that there is no sharp line to be drawn
between human and animal behaviour, except in the essential
human capacity for the cumulative transmission of experi-
ence, knowledge, concepts and ideas; and it is now rlear that
minds, in the sense of all activities with an obvious mental
component, have evolved just as much as have material
bodies; during pvolutionary time, mental activities of every
kind, from awareness and knowledge to emotion, memory
and will, have become increasingly intense and efficient, and
mental organization has reached ever higher levels. Through
sense-organs and brains, the mind-like potentialities of the
world-stuff have been progressively intensified and actual-
ized, in the same sort of way as its electrical properties have
been intensified in the electric organs of the torpedo-fish or
through human agency, in constructions like dynamos.

Since natural selection is the sole or main method of
bidiogical evolution, and since it can only operate to produce
results of biological utility, it is clear thav the mental pro-
perties of organisms cannot be mere useless by-products,
but must be of value to their possessors. Furthermore, they
can and do play an operative role in the evolutionary pro-
cess: thus the awareness of colour and pattern found in some
higher animals has led to the further evolution of colour-

i Physics has also revealed the inseparability and interchangeability of
matter and energy. For simplicity's sake, I am using matter as equivalent to
matter-and-energy, and material for material-and-energetic or physically
measurable properties.

290

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

patterns of various sorts, and has assisted in the birth of that
evolutionary novelty we call beauty. If the self-creation of
novelty is the basic winder of the universe, this eliciting of
mind from the potentialities of the world-stuff, and its
•intensification and increasing importance during evolution,
is the basic wonder of life.

•During evolution, the onward-flowing stream of life
breaks up into a vast number of branches or trends, each
resulting in improvement of one solt or another. The great
majority of these become so specialized that life in them finds
itself in a blind alley, incapable of further improvement or of
transformation for another way of existence. After this, they
either remain essentially unchanged for tens or even hun-
dreds of millions of years, or else wholly die out, becoming
extinguished in the sands of time. We need only recall the
extinction of the dinosaurs and other strange reptiles of the
Mesozoic, or the lack of any essential change shown by such
successful groups as the birds for over fifteen million years,
or the ants for over fifty.

• But through this radiating fan of restricted improvements
and blind-alley specializations there runs a trend towards
•major advance; and this current of biological advance has
continued through the two thousand million years of life's
existence. It is marked by increase of over-all biological
efficiency and by improvement in general plan of working.
During its course, there has been an enormous rise in level
of complex but harmonious organization — think of a bird or
a mammal as against a flatworm or a jellyfish; in flexibility
and the capacity for self-regulation; in physiological effi-
ciency, as shown in muscular contraction or rate of nervous
conduction, or nftnifested in sheer strength or speed; in the
range of awareness, as s£en in the evolution of sense-organs
— think of an eagle's eyes or an antetepe's ears as against the
blindness and deafness of a polyp or an amoeba; and in the
intensity and complexity of mental processes such as know-
ing and perceiving, feeling and willing, learning and re-
membering — think of dogs or elephants as against sea-
anemones or snails.

In the actual course of the evolutionary process, general
biological advance has been achieved in a series of steps,

291

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

through fhe emergence of a series of dominant types. Each
new dominant type possesses some improvement at the
expense of the previously dominant group from among
whose less specialized members it has evolved. This pro-
gressive replacement of dominant types and groups is most
clearly shown in the later history of vertebrates. The reptiles
replaced the moist-skinned amphibians as dominant type«of
land animal, and were in turn replaced by the warm-blooded
mammals and birds. It is thus perfectly proper to use terms
like higher and lower to describe different types of organism,
and progress for certain types of trend. A higher, organism is
one which has realized more of the inherent possibilities of
living substance, and biological progress denotes those
trends which do not restrict the further realization of those
possibilities.

The next fact of importance is that during evolutionary
time the avenues of possible progress have become pro-
gressively restricted, until to-day only one remains open.
Well before the end of the Cenozoic Era, the limits of
physiological efficiency seem to have been reached by life.
The largest size possible to efficient land animals was
attained by the dinosaurs over sixty million years ago:
the temperature-regulating mechanism of higher mammls
reached the profitable limit of accuracy perhaps halfway
through the Cenozoic, and their locomotor efficiency during
the Pliocene : it appears to be physically impossible to evolve
an acuity of vision or a speed of flight greater than that of a
falcon.

The only avenue of major advance left open was through
the Improvement of brain and mind. This was the line taken
by our own ancestors, and it was this advance which enabled
man to become the latest dominant type in evolution. His
rise to dominance is very recent — an affair of less than a
million years — but its later course has been spectacularly
rapid, in the extremely short period since the waning of the
last phase of glaciation; and it has been accompanied by
marked decline and widespread extinction of the previously
dominant mammals, as well as by a radical transformation
of his environment by man. Furthermore, it is clear that man
is only at the beginning of his period of evolutionary domin-

292

EVOLUTIONARY. HUMANISM

ance, ind that vast and still undreamt-of possibilities of
further advance still lie before him.

Biology, I repeat, has thus revealed man's place in nature.
He is the highest form of life produced by the evolutionary
.process on this planet, the latest dominant type, and the only
organism capable of further ^najor advance or progress.
I^is destiny is to realize new possibilities for the whole
terrestrial sector of the cosmic process, to be the instrument
of further evolutionary progress on *his planet.

The gast history of biological evolution gives us a certain
further guidance. We can justifiably extrapolate some of the
main trends of progress into the future, and conclude that
man should aim at a continued increase of those qualities
which have spelt progress in the biological past — efficiency
and control of environment, self-regulation and independ-
ence of outer changes, individuality and level of physio-
logical, ^organization, wholeness or harmony # of working,
extent of awareness and knowledge, storage of experience,
degree of mental organization. In particular, man is likely
to fulfil his destiny, more successfully if he exploits to the full
those improvements which have given hifti his position as
latest dominant type, notably his properties of reason,
imagination, and conceptual thought, and his unique capaci-
ties of accumulating, organizing, and applying experience
through a transmissible culture and set of ideas. These in-
clude the capacity to construct religions in the broad sense —
systems of attitude, in which knowledge can be combined
with ideals and imaginatively fused with our deep spiritual
emotions to form a stable framework of sentiments and
beliefs, which in turn will influence behaviour and help to
determine moral and practical action.

From this point of view, the religion indicated by our new
view of our position in the cosmos t must be one centred on
the idea of fulfilment. Man's most sacred duty, and at the
same time his most glorious opportunity, is to promote the
maximum fulfilment of the evolutionary process on this
earth; artd this includes the fullest realization of his own
inherent possibilities.

Let us follow up some of the implications of this general
conclusion. Evolutionary biology makes it clear that the

293 '

NEW BOTTLE.S FOR NEW WINE

developed human individual is, in a strictly scientific^ sense,
the highest product of the cosmic process of which we have
any knowledge; accordingly, we can formulate .the ulti-
mate aim of the human species as the realization of more
possibilities by more, and more fully developed, individuals.
On the other hand, human individuals cannot realize their
possibilities except as members of social groups, and through
means which only organized societies can provide. Further-
more, organization on the human level cannot be reproduced,
still less improved, except throught he social agency of cul-
tural transmission. Thus the paramountcy of the individual
is not absolute: it is limited by the need of maintaining
and improving social organization.

Man inhabits a world of ideas which he has created, and of
social institutions and achievements which those ideas have
generated. In this psychosocial world he lives and moves
and has his being. It is in a certain sense an artificial ppviron-
ment which he makes for himself, but can better be regarded
as an essential part of the radically new type of evolving
organization represented by the human, species. There is
inevitably some conflict between the interests of individuals
and those of society. But the conflict is in large measure
transcended in this conception of man as an evolving psycho-
social organism. This dictates certain conclusions. In the
longest-term point *of view, our aim must be to develop a
type of society and culture capable of ever-fresh evolution,
one which continually opens the way to new and fuller
realizations; in the medium-term point of view, we must
secure the reproduction and improvement of psycho-social
organization, the maintenance of the frameworks of society
and culture and their transmission and adjustment in time;
and in the immediate point of view we must aim at maxi-
mum individual fulfilment.

What needs stressing, however, is that, from the angle of
evolutionary humanism, the flowering of the individual is
seen as having intrinsic value, as being an end in itself. In
the satisfying exercise of our faculties, in the pure enjoyment
of our experience, the cosmic process of evolution is bringing
some of its possibilities to fruition. In individual acts of
comprehension or love, in the enjoyment of beauty, in the

294

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM
•

inner experiences of peace and assurance, in the satisfactions
of creative achievement, however humble, we are helping to
realize human destiny Above all, the individual should aim
at fulness* and wholeness of development. Every human
t being is confronted with the task of growing up, of building
a personality out of the raw lhaterials of his infant self. A
rich and full personality, in moral and spiritual harmony
with itself and with its destiny, one whose talents are not
buried in a napkin, and whose wholeness transcends its con-
flicts, is^the highest creation of which we have knowledge,
and in its attainment the individual possibilities of the
evolutionaiy process are brought to supreme fruition.

But if the individual has duties towards his own poten-
tialities, he owes them also to those of others, singly and
collectively. He has the duty to aid other individuals towards
fuller development, and to contribute his mite to the main-
tenance and improvement of the continuing sfceial process,
and so to the march of evolution as a whole.

However, to realize the practical importance of such
.general conclusions, we need to amplify and illuminate them
by following out their implications. To def this satisfactorily
in any detail is beyond the possibilities of a single article, or
indeed of a single individual. But I must at least make some
attempts at annotation, in the hope that they will serve as a
stimulus to further exploration by others.

The basic postulate of evolutionary humanism is that
mental and spiritual forces — using the term force in a loose
and general sense — do have operative effect, and are indeed
of decisive importance in the highly practical business of
working out human destiny; and that they are not super-
natural, not oitfside man but within him. Regarded as an
evolutionary agency, the human species is a psycho-social
mechanism which must operate by utilizing those forces.
We have to understand the nature of those forces; where,
within the psycho-social mechanism, they reside; and where
their points of application are?

In the firs* place, there is evil in man as well as good. This
obvious ethical fact has found theological expression in
elaborate doctrines like that of original sin, and has been
projected into hypotheses of supernatural powers of good

295

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

and evil, like God and the Devil, Ormuzd and Ahrimaki. But
the crude distinction in terms of ethical absolutes like "good"
and "evil" requires reformulation in the light of psychology
and history. We then see that the important distinction to
make is between positive ?nd negative, between constructive
and destructive or restrictive.cOn the negative side we have
such forces as hate, envy, despair, fear, destructive rage and
aggressiveness, restrictive selfishness in all its forms, from
greed to lust for power, qnd negations of effectiveness such
as internal disharmony, frustration and unresolved conflict;
on the positive side we have comprehension, love in the
broadest sense, including love of beauty and desire for truth,
the urge to creation and fuller expression, the desire to par-
ticipate and to feel useful in contributing to some larger
enterprise or purpose, pure enjoyment and the cultivation of
intrinsic talents and capacities, and that constructive dis-
position of fdices that we may call inner harmony.

These forces operate not only through individual minds,
but through the social framework. A society may be so
organized that it generates large amounts of hate or envy or
despair; or creates vast tracts of ugliness; or imposes sub-
normal health or inadequate mental development on large
sections of its population. Or its organization may serve to
encourage and facilitate constructive enthusiasm, to create
beauty, and to promote full and healthy individual develop-
ment. This is so obvious that we are sometimes in danger of
disregarding it. The fact remains that social organization
does canalize and concentrate the psychological forces of
human nature in different ways, so that society can act either
as an organ of frustration or an organ of fulfilment. Once we
have grasped that fact, it is up to us to make the attempt to
improve the design of society.

Evolutionary humanism has the further implication that
man is at one and the same time the only agent for realizing
life's further progress, and also the main obstacle in the path
of its realization. The hostile outer world was his first
obvious adversary; but the only opponent ultimately worthy
of his steel is himself. Man has learnt in large measure to
understand, control and utilize the forces of external nature :
he must now learn to understand, control and utilize the

296

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

forces of his own nature. This applies as much tif the blind
urge to reproduction as to personal greed or desire for
power, as much to arrbgance and fanaticism, whether nation-
alist or religious, as to sadism or self-indulgence.

Let me pursue one examplg in a little more detail. Most
individual human beings feel themselves saddled with some
Uirden of guilt or uncleanness or unrighteousness, and
desire a positive assurance of righteousness or cleansing or
worth. The exact nature of the senfiment varies from culture
to culture, and also as between different individuals, but
it always involves feelings of rightness and wrongness. The
simplest and most primitive method of coping with this dual
problem is to increase one's assurance of rightness by pro-
jecting one's own guilt or wrongness outwards on to events
or, if possible, on to a human or humanly personified eneipy.
The process may be wholly unconscious, or merely rational-
ized; -but this does not render it any less wrong or any less
dangerous. It prevents the proper development of the indi-
vidual personality by standing in the way of its wholeness
•and harmony of organization ; and it obstructs the develop-
ment both of society and of the species as a whole by magni-
fying or even creating conflicts and by converting potential
partners into actual enemies. The text-books of psychology
illustrate in detai! the workings of this subconscious tend-
ency to justification by projection. It is clearly an opponent
of progress, standing in the way both of individual and
evolutionary fulfilment, and if man is to advance, it needs to
be understood, faced, and overcome.

The business of individual development thus poses a
triple problem. The individual has to come to terms with the
battery of jx^frerful and often conflicting impulses with
which he has been equipped willy-nilly by heredity; with the
forces of his immediate social environment — family, class,
and nation ; and with what I may call transcendent forces —
all those which transcend that immediate environment, such
as the impact of the enduring framework of nature, the
concept "of the human race as a whole and its welfare, the
driving force of man's own ideals and aspirations.

Freud has shown how the infantile and often unconscious
struggle between love and hate colours, all early develop-

k * 297

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

ment, an<fi can become transformed into a frustrating conflict
between the sympathetic impulses making for interdependent
co-operation and the aggressive and power-greedy impulses
making for hostility and violence. And we all experience
consciously the shock of the powerful emergence of the sex-
impulse in adolescence, and the difficulty of harnessing it
satisfactorily to our vital chariot.

The immediate social forces will influence the way in
which the individual's impulses are adjusted: for instance,
social approval and disapproval largely determine 'he form
in which conscience develops. As modern anthropological
research has served to emphasize, the personality-moulding
forces of the social environment vary from society to society,
so that the types of individual psychological organization
fo\ind in South Africa, for instance, will differ from those in
Bali or in Soviet Russia.

The transcendent forces have tended to be neglected by
social scientists, perhaps partly in reaction against their over-
emphasis by religious thinking, and partly because the very
phrase social science tends to focus scientific attention on
actual immediate social organizations. But they are of great
importance. When Wordsworth wrote of

High instincts before which our mortal nature
Doth tremble like a guilty thing surprised

he may not have provided a scientific formulation, but
he gave convincing expression to a potent element in
life. In any case, man's capacity for generalization and
abstract thought inevitably generates what we call ideals,
and ideals inevitably affect behaviour and personal develop-
ment. Furthermore, the basic human sense of dependence
and need for maximum assurance makes it inevitable that
man will seek for the enduring elements in or behind the
disconcerting flux of experience, and will attempt to express
them in psychologically effective form. Here, as elsewhere,
the problem is to ensure that the resultant formulations
shall be not only effective but true, in the sense of corre-
sponding with reality to the greatest possible extent. From
our evolutionary humanist point of view, they need to be
related to the optimum future development of humanity.

298

EVOLUTIONARY 1 HUMANISM

Individual mental and spiritual development tlfus always
and inevitably involves the adjustment or reconciliation of
conflicts' of various sorts — between different impulses, be-
tween the practical or immediate^and the transcendent or
• enduring. This last conflict <^n to-day be more precisely
formulated as the conflict between the demands of the exist-
ing society into which the individual happens to be born,
and those of the evolving human species as a whole.

It is easy to say that evolutionary humanism establishes
the duty of the individual as the optimum realization of his
possibilities: but this is too general. The fact that he must
reconcile his individual demands with the needs of society
and the claims of further evolutionary progress defines the
problem rather more closely, but still leaves it vague in many
important details. In the first place, it is clear that there ^re
different degrees of fruition, different levels tq be attained
by the% developing personality. In religious phraseology
(which can readily be translated into the more cumbersome
terms of scientific psychology), the organization of the soul
can reach different grades of perfection. It is always possible
to know and understand more, to feel and to sympathize
more comprehensively, to achieve a fuller internal harmony.
The right kind of individual development is thus one which
leaves the way permanently open for fresh possibilities of
growth (just as evolutionary progress was only achieved
through trends ortmprovement which did not bar the way
to further improvement). 1 The developing self has the possi-
bility of transcending itself in further development; but in
practice, different selves stop at different levels. There is thus
in some sense a hierarchy of development among person-
alities, more or lfcss corresponding to the hierarchy of higher
and lower among non-fruman organisms.

In the second place thr.-e main contrasted ideals of per-
sonal development are possible. One is specialization: the
fullest exploitation of some particular capacity, as seen in
many successful professional men. The second we may call
all-roundness Toy summation : the cultivation of every kind
of fulfilment separately. This was, broadly, the ideal of the
ancient Athenians and of our own Elizabethans. The third
1 See Charles Morris, The Open Self, Prentice- ^all, New York.

299

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

f

is difficult to characterise in a word : we may perhaps call it
comprehensive wholeness : the cultivation of inner harmony
and peace, the development of a unitary and comprehensive
pattern of intellectual ai?d spiritual organization. This has
been the aim of the saints, tbe sages, and the mystics.

The first is in some degree necessary for personal success
in life: but pushed to extremes it is as dangerous as biological
specialization, and stands in the way of the higher levels of
personal development. T*he second does justice to the variety
of apparently conflicting fulfilments possible to man. The
Greeks gave it a religious sanction by divinizing various
separate human activities or modes of fulfilment. The co-
existence of Aphrodite and Artemis, of Ares and Athena in
the Greek Pantheon implies that, to the same individual at
different times, both physical love and chastity can be sacred,
that a man can find high fulfilment both in war and in peace-
ful learning. The organization of personality round a^umber
of separate and apparently disparate modes of fulfilment
corresponds roughly on the human plane to the organization
of behaviour round a number of sepa/atc and mutually
exclusive instincts in an insect, or impulses and drives in a bird
or a mammal. It is an important method of utilizing appar-
ently conflicting or contradictory capacities to achieve a high
sum-total of fulfilment. But it does so by the avoidance of
conflicts, not by their reconciliation. It thus, if pushed to its
logical extreme, stands in the way of achieving the third
ideal — wholeness, the unity and continuity of the highest
types of personality — just as the mammals' separate emo-
tional drives and their series of isolated experiences had to
be brought together in consciousness before the continuity
of man's mental life could be realized.

Some kind of wholeness, some degree of unification, is
thus indispensable for the higher levels of human fulfilment.
But here again restriction or over-specialization can have
unfortunate results. The dangerous over-specialization here
is emphasis on unity and harmony to the neglect of compre-
hensiveness, richness and variety. A holy life may be strongly
unified, but may be sadly restricted in scope. Its pattern may
be a whole in the sense of having a well-marked unity; but
it may fall far short of possible wholeness in failing to utilize

300

EVOLUTIONARY, HUMANISM

many of the potentialities of humap development Whole-
ness, however, if properly understood, remains the key to
the higher reaches of* personal development and fulfilment.
The personality is a spiritual and mental construction, a
work of art like other human constructions. Wholeness is to
this construction what design'Ss to a building, conferring a
n$w beauty and significance on what would otherwise be a
mere assemblage of separate parts. This applies whether the
building be a cottage or a cathedral, whether the personality
be that of a simple labourer or a great archbishop.

It is all too obvious that, in the great majority of human
beings, the great majority of their possibilities, whether
physical or spiritual, intellectual or aesthetic, remains un-
realized; while our rather meagre knowledge of mysticism
and yoga makes it clear that some regions of human poten-
tiality remain virtually unexplored, or at least unavailable? to
mankind as a whole. I would venture to prophecy that one of
the next important steps in human progress will be the
development of a science of human possibilities — their
.nature, their limits, and the communicable techniques for
their fuller realization. •

Evolutionary humanism, with its naturalism and its twin
concepts of present fulfilment for the individual and of long-
term progressive «realizat ion of possibilities for man and the
planet he inhabits, imposes the need for a transvaluation of
values. For one thing, it helps to restore our unity with
nature. It brings back the objects of our adoration and the
goals of our spiritual longings out of supernatural remote-
ness and sites them nearer home, in the immediacy of experi-
ence. As an example, let us consider the beauty and richness
of nature. Ram Christian mystics like Trahcrne have found
in it a religious fulfilment, and great poets like Wordsworth,
in spite of the theological preconceptions of their time, have
succeeded in expressing its transcendent value. The gospel
of evolutionary humanism generalizes that value. The enjoy-
ment of the beauty and strange variety of the natural world
— an experience engendered jointly by nature and the
capacities of man's mind — is seen as one of the indispensable
modes of human fulfilment, not to be neglected without
peril, involving something essentially religious or sacred

301

NEW BOTTLER FOR NEW WINE

even thovgh we may pot burden it with any such f heavy
designation.

As a corollary, wc have the collective duty of preserving
nature — partly for its own sake, but mainly as One of the
necessary means for man's fulfilment. To exterminate a
living species, be it lion or lammergeier, to desecrate the
landscape, to wipe out wild flowers or birds over great traces
of country, is to diminish the wonder, the interest, and the
beauty of the universe, h

The same, mutatis mutandis, is true of the beauty of art and
architecture. For evolutionary humanism, one of the ultimate
aims of man appears as the creation of more and fuller
beauty. Failure to create beauty is a dereliction of duty, and
the creation of ugliness and meanness is immoral. Judged by
humanist values, the cities and many other parts of the arti-
ficial environment that man has created for himself stand in
large measure condemned. The conservation and proper ex-
ploitation of natural resources is another of the essentially
sacred duties imposed by a humanist ideology — because they
provide the indispensable material basis for }iigher fulfilment.

We perceive the same need for compromise or adjustment
between social values as appeared for modes of individual
fulfilment. We obviously should not preserve all wild life
everywhere, nor leave all nature untamed 'for the enjoyment
of nature-lovers. But neither should we allow economic
exploitation to become universally dominant. Though much
can rightly be accomplished in the way of reconciling diverse
interest in a single pattern, it is often impossible to do so
completely. Then we'must be content with all-roundness by
summation, and allot areas in which separate interests arc
paramount — wild life in one area, natural bcuty in another,
exploitation of resources in a third, and so forth.

The most important of all the major trends that we find in
evolution concerns the awareness of organisms, in the broad-
est possible sense — the organs of experience, by which they
become aware of happenings in the external environment
and in themselves, of the world and of their situation in it.

I cannot embark on a detailed discussion of this improve-
ment of biological awareness. It must suffice to remind my
readers that there has been a great increase in the range and

302

EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM

acuity f of sense-organs; that the awareness of pain has been
specialized so as to help animals to profit by experience; that
the higher animals ar£ aware of a wid^ range of emotional
states, often intense, and closely linked with adaptive in-
stinctive actions ; that there has been a trend towards the
integration of different elements of awareness into increas-
ingly complex patterns, as illustrated by the evolution of
pattern-vision, or later by the combination of sight and
touch and muscular sense to provjde perceptual awareness
of solid and coloured objects in three-dimensional space;
that the'capacity to organize awareness in transmissible and
cumulative form is the distinctive property which has per-
mitted the evolutionary rise of man ; and finally, that man's
future progress depends very largely on how he continues
this trend towards the greater extension and better organ-
ization of awareness.

Let me recall that the organizations of awareness that play
a part m our mental life are all our own creations — of course
in partnership with external fact, but none the less human
productions. This is true even of our perceptions, as is illus-
trated by such work as that of Ames and Cantril and by the
study of how blind people learn to see after recovering their
power of vision. 1 We do not merely receive direct impres-
sions or representations of some external reality. We have to
learn, albeit for the most part quite unconsciously, to organ-
ize the chaos of coloured patterns, which is all we receive in
sensation, into coherent perceptions, on the basis of repeated
experience. Perceptions, in other words, always involve some
degree of assumption and interpretation.

An obvious example is the night sky: the "natural" inter-
pretation of ttys was to perceive the sky as a hemisphere
studded with equidistant stars; now, with the aid of tele-
scopes and astronomers' brains, we see it as a fathomless
depth of space. Even when, as with the night sky, such
interpretative assumptions are largely dependent on con-
scious intellectual processes, they modify the way in which
our raw awareness is perceptually organized. This is still

1 See J. Z. Young, Doubt and Certainty in Science, Oxford University
Press, London, 195 1, and my Evolution in Action, Chatto and Windus,
London, 1953.

303

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

more obviously true of the concepts and verbal s/mbols
which are the chief vehicles for communication. Human
societies have to create them: individuals have to learn them:
each of us has to build up his own organization X>{ signifi-
cance round verbal symbols like horse or mathematics. And
so it continues up to the moic complex levels of organiza-
tion, to the construction of laws of nature to subsume va$t
quantities of observations and experiments on the welter of
events, of works of art ta bring together many diverse ideas
and emotional experiences in a single unified whole, r of gods
to unify the chaos and the conflicts of spiritual and religious
experience.

Collective awareness is thus the distinctive and most im-
portant organ of the human species. It can be improved both
quantitatively, by adding to knowledge and extending the
range of experience, and qualitatively, by improving its
organization/Scientific hypotheses and laws are better r prgan-
izations for coping with our experience of physical pheno-
mena than are trial-and-error methods, or traditional pre-
cepts, or pseudo-explanations in terms of metaphysical
principles. Monotheism provides a better organization for
certain important aspects of religious experience than does
polydaimonism.

But meanwhile the total volume of knowledge available to
man for the business pf living and evolving has increased to
a prodigious and spectacular extent, and /his very increase
in extent demands constant modification of the organiza-
tions of knowledge, including sometimes the creation of
quite new types of organization and the scrapping of old
ones. On this last point, the conclusions dictated by evolu-
tionary humanism can be briefly summed aip as follows.
First, man finds one of his ultimate fulfilments in compre-
hension. Fuller comprehension is one of the basic duties
(and privileges) of the individual. Secondly, accumulated
and organized knowledge and experience are necessary
instruments or organs for human advance. Thus scientific
research in all fields is essential, and its encouragement is
one of the most important tasks of a civilized society.

Then it is clear that the common pools of accumulated and
organized knowledge on which civilization and human

304

EVOLUTIONARY .HUMANISM

advancl depend will perform their psycho-social functions
more adequately as they are more fully available to and more
fully utilized by all the members of a community, and as they
merge morfc fully into a single universal pool for the whole
human species. Education is exterfding the possibilities of
participation in knowledge ancf ideas, while natural science
is already international, and has laid the foundations for a
comprehensive global system of knowledge.

Science has also contributed a discovery of the first magni-
tude — the discovery of the principle of limited but increasing
certitude as # the best method of extending and organizing
knowledge. The principle of limited certitude not only in-
cludes scientific method in the restricted sense — the method
of dispassionate observation and, where possible, experiment,
of'framing hypotheses, and of their testing and modification
in the light of further observation and experiment. But'it
comprises more than this: it involves a general attitude to
experience. It implies a fundamental humility, in acknow-
ledging at the outset our enormous ignorance, the vast
extent of what we do not know. But it also implies a legiti-
mate pride and assurance — pride in the extent of the areas
t already annexed to the domain of knowledge from the wastes
of ignorance, assurance in the tested validity of the accumu-
lated facts and in \?he efficacy of the scientific method ; and
assurance also that the scientific method of accumulating
and organizing kn9wledge can be profitably extended to the
entire psycho-social field, to the workings of society and of
human nature, in such a way that knowledge can become in
a full sense the basis of wisdom.

The scientific spirit and the scientific method have proved
the most effective agents for the comprehension and control
of physical nature. It remains for man to apply them to the
comprehension and control of human destiny. For this to
happen, science must understand that a religion of some kind
is a necessary organ for coping with the problems of destiny;
and religion must not only accept and utilize the findings of
science, but irfust be willing to admit the central principle of
limited certitude, with its implication of progressive but
always incomplete achievement of a better religious con-
struction.

305

NEW BOTTLE.S FOR NEW WINE

There # are a few otfyer points on which I would ^ike to
touch. The importance of the population problem for human
destiny is now beginning to loom large. The implications of
evolutionary humanism here are clear. If the nill develop-
ment of human individuals and the fulfilment of human
possibilities is the overriding^aim of our evolution, then any
over-population which brings malnutrition and misery, or
which erodes the world's material resources or its resources
of beauty or intellectual satisfaction, is evil. Among the
world's major and immediate tasks is the working out of an
effective and acceptable population policy. In the 'ultimate
light of humanist values, the deliberate encouragement of
over-population for military or political ends, as in pre-war
Italy and Japan, the intellectual dishonesty of the Russian
Communists in asserting that over-population is an invention
of* the "Morganist-Weismannist hirelings of American
monopolists* 1 designed to justify American imperialist ex-
pansion, and the theological dogmatism, of the 'Roman
Catholics which denounces birth-control and prevents the
scientific discussion of population problems even in inter-
national bodies like the World Health Organization — all
are seen as immoral and indeed wicked.

Evolutionary humanism has eugenic implications also.
These are, for the moment, largely theoretical, but in due
time will become immensely practical. Within a century we
should have amassed adequate knowledge of what could be
done negatively to lighten the burden of inherited deficiency
of mind or body which presses so cruelly on so many indi-
vidual human beings and so heavily on evolving humanity
as a whole, and positively to raise the entire level of innate
human possibilities and capacities. When thjis has happened,
the working out of an effective and acceptable eugenic policy
will be seen as not only fin urgent but an inspiring task, and
its political or theological obstruction as immoral.

I must say a word about the arts. Art, science, and religion
are the three main fields of man's creative activity: all are
indispensable for his fulfilment and the greater realization
of his possibilities. In its recent manifestations, Western

1 Quoted from the New York Herald-Tribune's summary, April 5th,
1948, of an article by Professor Glushchenko in Pravda.

306

EVOLUTIONARY .HUMANISM

civilization has tended to exalt science and its technological
applications at the expense of the arts. But we can grasp how
important and indispensable they really -are by imagining a
world withbut them. Think of a world without music or
poetry, without its churches and* noble houses, without
ballets, plays, novels, and films* without pictures and sculp-
tures : such a world would be intolerable, and life in it
unlivable.

The practice of various arts — painting and modelling,
music and acting — can play an important role in the develop-
ment of individual personality in education ; this is especially
tr;ue of children in whom intellectual interests are not natur-
ally strong, but in any case intellectual interests alone will
tend to a one-sided distortion of development. And through-
out life the arts can provide individual fulfilments unattain-
able by any other means. #

But fpr my present purpose it is the social relations of the
artist and the social functions of the arts that are more
relevant, as well as being in more need of clarification. Two
extreme positions ^re possible. Art may be regarded merely
as self-expression, and the individual artist may acknowledge
•no responsibility to the society in which he happens to live,
but only to himself and to whatever ideas of art he may
happen to hold. Or it may be regarded merely as an instru-
ment of the State, and the artist be required to subordinate
his own ideas entirely to the task of expressing the aims and
interests of official policy. At the moment, both these extreme
positions are actually held — the former by many among the
more rebellious artists in Western countries, 1 the latter by
the U.S.S.R. with its officially imposed doctrine of Socialist
Realism. Neither extreme is really tenable by itself, but the
partial truths ^embodied, in them may be reconciled. In the
light of evolutionary humanism art appears not as an instru-
ment of the State, but as an organ of the evolving human
species : and though the variety of individual genius and the
duty of experimenting with new possibilities of vision and
expression miist be admitted, humanism insists that the
artist, like all other men, has some responsibilities to the

1 It is curious to note how in some cases, for instance Picasso, extreme
individualism in practice may be combined with a theoretical Communism.

307

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

community of which hje is a member, as well as to tie gifts
with which, by no merit of his own, he may have been
endowed.

Viewed in this light, the duty of the artist comprises not
only the duty of cultivating his personal talents and express-
ing his own individuality afid ideas, but also the duty of
understanding something of the universe in which he li^ps,
of the social process of which he is a part, and of his own
relations with and possible role in it.

Evolutionary humanism makes it clear that the # essential
function of the arts is one of bearing witness to the wonder
and variety of the world and of hunfan experience. In more
precise but more forbidding phraseology, it is to create
vehicles for the effective expression and communication
of complex emotionally charged experiences, whkh are of
vdlue in the process of human fulfilment. Both science and
art are instruments for comprehending the world,, $nd for
communicating that comprehension. They employ different
methods, and are important in different ways: but the two
are complementary, and both are indispensable.

Indeed, in every sphere, evolutionary humanism appears
as one which both necessitates and makes possible the re-«
conciliation of extreme positions and the adjustment of con-
flicting interests. Conflicts may be transcended in the process
of becoming. This central concept of a process of becoming,
a self-transformation of humanity with * desirable direction
and rate, provides a framework of synthesis in which many
conflicts can be transcended. Continuity and change: doubt
and certainty; the immediate and the enduring; competition
and co-operation; the actual and the possible; individualism
and collectivism, at all levels from family, local group, class
or nation, to humanity and indeed to life aS a whole, are
among the many antithetic opposites which can be recon-
ciled. In the actual process of individual development, the
stress falls on the reconciliation of conflicting impulses in a
harmonious personal unity, in that of social development on
the adjustment of conflicting interests in a pktterft of maxi-
mum fruitfulness. Above all, our central concept of greater
fulfilment through the realization of possibilities brings
ideals and ultimate values into relation with actual imper-

308

EVOLUTIONARY 'HUMANISM

fections and present efforts, and links them as participants
in the common task of better achieving human destiny.

This Brings me back to where I started — the idea of
religion as an organ of destiny. It is clear, as I said earlier,
•that twentieth-century man nef ds a new organ for dealing
with destiny, a new system of beliefs and attitudes adapted
to*the situation in which he and his societies now have to
exist and thus an organ for the better orientation of the
human species as a whole — in oth£r words, a new religion.

Like all other new religions, and indeed all other new
movements^ of ideas, it will at the outset be expressed and
spread by a small minority: but it will in due time tend to
become universal, not only potentially and in theory, but
actually and in practice. The properties of man's psycho-
social nature make this inevitable. Man cannot avoid the
process of convergence which makes for the iptegration of
divergent or hostile groups in a single organic world society
and culture. 1 And an integrated world society cannot operate
effectively without an integrated common pool of thought
and body of ideas." Thought and practice interact; but in the
modern world thought is likely to move the faster. And so
a universalist system of ideas, if firmly based in reality, can
be expected to play an important part in effecting the process
of practical and institutional integration.

Science, as a system of discovering, organizing, and
applying mutual knowledge, is already unified and universal
in principle, though its efficiency as an organ of the human
species could still be much increased. It remains for man to
unify and universalize his religion. How that religion will
take form — what rituals or celebrations it might practise,
whether it wilP equip itself with any sort of professional
body or priesthood, whit buildings it will erect, what symbols
it will adopt — that is something which no one can prophesy.
Certainly it is not a field on which the natural scientist should
venture. What the scientist can do is to draw attention to the
relevant, facts, revealed by scientific discovery, and to their
implications and those of the scientific method. He can aid
in the building up of a fuller and more accurate picture of

1 See Pere Teilhard de Chardin's remarkable book, Le Phcnomlne Humain^
Editions du Sevil, Pari9, 1955.

309

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

reality ir> general and of human destiny in particular, secure
in the knowledge that in so doing he is contributing to
humanity's advance, and helping to make possible the
emergence of a more universal and more adequate religion.

Let me return to whefre I began — the change in our atti-
tude to the cosmic process since my grandfather's time, the
reformulation which the march of knowledge in those si*ty
years has made imperative. To-day, we must say that the
ethical progress of society, and indeed human progress in all
its aspects, consists not in combating the cosmic process but
in wrestling with it (as Jacob wrestled with the, angel), and
in finding out what we can do to direct it. And this depends
on our understanding of it, and on our learning how to
discharge our role of leadership in it. If T. H. Huxley were
alive to-day, I believe that he would agree with this formula-
tion (though I am sure that he would have phrased it better),
and that he would accept the general way of thinking about
man's destiny which I have called Evolutionary Humanism.

In exposing my thesis, I have had to range discursively
into many fields.In concluding, perhaps I may be permitted
to bring them together in a personal focus. I can, at any rate,
testify to the fact that the concept of evolutionary humanism '
has been of value to myself. It has enabled me to resolve
many of the dilemmas and conflicts with •Which any enquir-
ing and aspiring mind is inevitably beset. It has enabled me
to see this strange universe into which* we are born as a
proper object both of awe and wondering love and of intel-
lectual curiosity. More, it has made me realize that both my
wonder and my curiosity (like those of any other human
being) can be of significance and value in that universe. It
has enabled me to relate my experiences 1 of the world's
delights and satisfactions, and those of its horrors and its
miseries, to the idea of fulfilment, positive or negative. In the
concept of increased realization of possibilities, it provides
a common measuring rod for all kinds of directional pro-
cesses, from the development of personal ethics to large-scale
evolution, and gives solid ground for maintaining an affirm-
ative attitude and faith, as against that insidious enemy,
Goethe's Geist^ der stets verneint^ the spirit of negation and
despair. It affirms the positive significance of effort and

310

EVOLUTIONARY •HUMANISM

creative activity and enjoyment. In, some ways fiost im-
portant of all, it has brought back intellectual speculation
and spiritual aspiration out of the abstract and isolated
spheres they once seemed to me to inhabit, to a meaningful
•place in concrete reality; and so Ifas restored my sense of
unity with nature. * •

JFrom boyhood, I was deeply impressed by Wordsworth's
lines in Tintern Abbey:

•»

and I have felt
A presence that disturbs mc with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. ,

• •

Yet. I was unable to see how experiences of this kind,

though I could personally testify to their value, could be
linked up with the framework of ideas that I was attempting
to build up on th« basis of my scientific education. In the
light of evolutionary humanism, however, the connection
• became clear, though the intellectual formulation given to it
by Wordsworth was inadequate. The reality behind his
thought is that nlan's mind is a partner with nature: it
participates with the external world in the process of gener-
ating awareness arxl creating values.

The importance of this idea of participating, of co-
operative partnership in a joint enterprise, had been brought
home to me in various separate contexts. I had met with it
as a keystone of our colonial policy in Africa; as a necessary
basis for the work of Unesco; as the concept inspiring the
Colombo Plin and the United Nations' programme of
technical assistance; as the basis for.Bertrand de Jouvenel's
illuminating definition of politics as action directed towards
inducing men to co-operate in a common enterprise; indeed,
evolutionary biology showed me the destiny of man on earth
as a partnership between man and nature, with man in
the leading position — a joint enterprise involving the par-
ticipation of the entire human species for its most fruitful
execution.

3"

NEW BOTTLES FOR NEW WINE

It ha* been a deep, satisfaction that my almost fife-long
interest in evolution has led me to a better understanding of
the relations between human life and the apparently hostile
universe in which it exists. Man, both as individual and as
species, turns out to be profoundly significant in the cosmic
process. When Hamlet pronounced man "the paragon of
animals", "the quintessence of dust", he anticipated Darwin
and all the implications of Darwin's work for our ideas about
man's origin and destiny. But, he also said, "man delights
me not, no, nor woman either", thereby voicing so/ne of the
disillusion and horror which we all sometimes reel at human
frustration, stupidity, and cruelty.' That disillusion a*d
horror has been sharpened for us moderns by the events of
the last two decades — though, if we had been willing to cast
our eyes backward into history, we should hf*ve found
abundance of stupidities and cruelties to rival and exceed
those of our own times. However, in the light of our newer
knowledge of psychology and history, the moral of those
failures and horrors is not that human nature is unchange-
able or incurably evil. Human nature always contains the
possibilities of evil, waste, and frustration; but it also con-
tains those of good, of achievement, and of fruition. The 1
lesson of evolution is that we must think in the limited but
positive terms of fulfilment — the degree^to which we, indi-
vidually and collectively, manage to realize our inherent
possibilities. *

Finally, the concept of evolutionary humanism has helped
me to see how, in principle at least, science and religion can
be reconciled. It has shown me outlets for ideas and senti-
ments which can legitimately be called religious, but which
otherwise would have remained frustrated or untapped.
And it has indicated how vital a eontributidn science can
make to religious progress.

My grandfather, in the same famous essay in which he
defined agnosticism, stated as self-evident that "every man
should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him".
My faith is in human possibilities : I hope that I have here
succeeded in making clear some of my reasons for that faith.

312

INDEX

Adaptation, H2, 137 fF.
Africa, 115, 143, 147-8, 275,

31 1 5 destruction of wild life,

186; love and sex, 228
agnosticism, 279
Ahlmann, Professor, 165, 167
analysis, differential, 75
anatomy, comparative, 41
ancestor-worship, 114, 281 •
animals: love and sex, 217-20
anthropology, 61-3, 65, 70, 77,

91-2; T. # H. Huxley and,

93-4

ants, evolutionary stabilization,
32, 47* 291; mimicry, 143,
145-6

Arabic thought, 33

Architecture, 302

^ristotle, 26

art, 59, 71, 73, 302, 306-8

arthropods, 32, 45

artifacts, 82

artists, 59, 73, 307

astronomy, 44, 1 00

Ate, 19-20

atomic fission, 23

atomic warfare, 188, 212

atoms, 24 #

Australia: population problems,

194-6; white policy, 196
awareness, 302-4

Bali, 1 90- 1

belief, 99,* 107, no; and
scientific knowledge, 234-44;
and necessity, 237; and the
future, 241-4

3

belief-hypotheses, 282-4
belief •systems, 110-20, 245-6;
* new, 1 10, 126^259
Bidney, 65-6

biology, 35, 43-4, 66n, 286,
2910-4; methods of approach,
74-7; and Iceland, 155-65

birds: evolution of, 45, 90, 291 ;
cryptic colouration and mimi-
cry, 146-50; in Iceland, 155-
165; emotional life, 219-20

birth-control, 179-80, 185,
207-9 •

brain, human, 28, 168, 224, 292

Bridges, Robert, 231-2

Britain: eighteenth-century, 53,
254-5 ; expectation of life, 1 75 ;
population problems, 177-8;
energy consumption, 198-9

British Association, 94

Bury, J. B., 20

butterflies: cryptic resemblance
and mimicry, 143-4, 150; in
Iceland, 155, 158

Calcutta, 206
Camclina, 148-9
Carr-Saunders, The Population

Problem, 179
Catullus, 225
celebrations, 1 1 3-4, 309
Cenozoic, 292
Chinese civilization, 32
Christian tradition, 34, 37;

missionaries, 190-1
Christianity, 54-5, 115, 117,

119, 234, 254-6, 281-4

3

;n

chromosomes, 128-33, 136
classification, biological, 74-5,
89-90

climate, world changes in, 1 65-7
Coelenterates, 46-7
Colombo Plan„3ii
Common Man, 15
communication, 81
community, social, 122-4,^76-7
complexity, increase of during

evolution, 24
Continental drift, 160-1
Cook, Robert C, Human

Fertility, 200
Corystes, 139-40
cfabs, 137, 139-41
Cretaceous period, 27, 31
Crete, 1 1
Cuba, 33

cuckoos, 1575 mimicry, 148-9
cultural evolution, 48, 68-72,
78-92

cultural pattern-systems, 78
cultural specialization, 33-4
cultural traditions, 35*
cultures, 33, 50, 66-72, 186-96,

213; ancient, 68
cytoplasm, 64

Da,nte, 216

Darwin, Charles, 4 1 , 7 3, 1 30, 3 1 2
Darwinian thought, 41, 312
de Chardin, Pere Teilhard, 50,

81, 3ogn
de Jouvenel, Bertrand, 31 1
destiny, human, 11, 19, 103,

120-2, 262-3, 2 7 8 » 280
Donne, 215

Dorippe japonica, 1 37-40
Drosophila, 131-5

EX

education, 243

Egypt, 107, H4-i5» 249, 271

Einstein, 73, 241

energy, world consumption of,

197-9
environment, 30-1
erosion, 186; cultural, 190
escapism, 117

ethics, 21, 262, 279, 295-6
eugenics, 30, 306
evil, 295-6

evolution, 13-14, 21-4, 36, 4.3,
47, 57, 61-2, 100-3, 2 4&-7>
291-301

evolution, biological, 22, 43-4,
47-8, 83-4, 1 01, 109, 250,

2 53; *9 l -3° l
evolution, inorganic, 22, 43-4,

61

evolution, psychosocial, 22-3, 43-

44, 47-8, 62, 84, 247
evolutionary humanism, 102-3,

279-312
exploration* 12
eye-spots, 152

i

facts, increase in, 12, 95-6
faith, 99, 104, 234-6, 312
Fascism, 20, 38, 234
Fiji, 192-4

fish, evolution of, 45, 90; cryptic

resemblance in, 144
Fisher, James, 155, 164
Fleming, and antibiotics, 1 28
flowcr-mantises, 150-1
flowers: flora of Iceland, 1605

cryptic resemblance to, 146,

150

food-production, 182, 186, 188-
196, 199-212

I N I

freedom,* 28, 266; meanings,

233; and beliefs, 234-8
Freud, 19, J25, 241, 297.8
fulfilment, 6tf, 299; and popula-
tion, 187-8, 212, 306

Galileo, 128
Gakon, 130
Gandhi, 208-9, 224
gene-complexes, 64-5, 76
genes, 64-5, 76, 13 1-6
generics, 55*63-4, 74> 128-36,

139

genius, 71

germ-plasm, 50, 64-7
God, 58, 2?8, 269-74, 296
Gocthc*26, 310
Golden 'Age, 19

Greek civilization, 19, 113, 115,

282, 300
Gudmunsson, Dr F.,*i64-6

•hate, 229-31
hawks, 47
Hegel, 251, 261
Hcikc crabs, 137-8
heredity, 128-36
history, 12, 56, 109, 252
Hobbes, 16

Homo Sapiens^ 22, 33, 67, 280

Homotherma, 91

Hornet Clearwing, 145

Humanism, evolutionary, .102-
i<>3> 279-312

Huxley, Aldous, 20-1, 36-7

Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1950,
93-127; 1953, 279-312

Huxley, Tt H., 46, 94, 310; and
anthropology, 93-4; and Johns
Hopkins University, 269; and
human destiny, 279-80

3

EX

Ice Age, 31; Little, ibp
Iceland, 156, 160; bird species,

155-65 plants, 16*0, 167;

climate amelioration, 165-7;

fish, 166-7
itieology, 99, no, 1 16-17; new,

126-7

India, 37, 107, 198-9; popula-
tioi and production, 203-10

individual, 49, 73, 266, 297-
299; development, 38-9, 299;
primacy of, 122-3; fulfilment,
60, 187; and the State, 257

Indonesia, 188-91

insects, 32, 45, 14 1-2, 247,
252; mimicry, 142, 144;
emotional life, 2ii

institutions, social, 82, 294

Italy, 38, 306

Jamaica, 181 #

James, William, 290

Japan, 12, 38; Heike crabs,
137-8; population and pro-
duction, 200-3, 3°6

Java, population and production,
188-90

Jeans, Sir James, 240, 258

Jesus, 25, 37

Jews, 234, 236, 242

Karma, 19

Kinsey, Dr, 223, 232

knowledge, 42, 84-6, 246, 248-
249, 272, 290, 304-55 and
man's role in nature, 56;
organization of, 255

knowledge, new, 1 2, 239-44

Kroeber, 71

Kumbh Mela, 204-5

5

J N

Lamarck r 66, 129

Langer, Susanne, 1 1 3

language and grammar, 78

lantern-bugs, 153

leaf- fish, 141 9

liberalism, nineteenth - century'

96

Lloyd Barrage, 182
London, growth of, 95 r
love, 296; meanings, 213-14; and
sex, 216, 223-4; in animals,
217-20; in birds, 219-20; in
human beings, 221-32; and
marriage, 226-7; in primitive
societies, 228; and hate, 229-
-231
lungfish, 46 '
Lyell, 93

Lysenlco, 235, 242, 257

Mai thus, Thomas,' 172, 178-9
mammals, in evolution, 45, 90
man, 29, 49, 103-4, 239, 259,
280, 312; place in nature, 41-
60; love, 221-32; as micro-
cosm, 249
mantis, 150-1

Marxism, 38, 53, 87, 97, 105,
2 57> 2 ^5; and science, 235,
342; and transhumanism, 260-
261, 266

matter, 290

Mead, Margaret, 227

mechanisms, psychosocial, 9 8 ;
biological, 105

Membracidae, 142

Mendel, 73-4, 256

Mendelism, 11, 66, 76, 130-4

mentifacts, 81

Mesopotamia, 282

3

)EX

Mesozoic (secondary) ^ra, 35,

46, 291
Metazta, 79, 90
Michurinism, 235 *
Middle Ages, 34, 53, 73, 227
mimicry: visual, 137-54; by

sound, 149-50; of faces, y.0,

152-3

mind, 108-10, 241, 247, 280,
292

Mivart, St John, 50
modifications, not heritable, 129
molecules, 24, 246
Monocirrhus (leaf- fish), 14 1-2
Morgan, T. H M 131,
Morris, Charles, 243, 29911
moths, cryptic lesemblaiice, 145
Muller, H. J., 137
Muller, Max, 94, 1 32
mutation, 64
myth, 18-19

Myvatn, Lake, 158-9, 165, 167.
nations, 39*

nature, 41, 43, 154, 286; man's
place 111^41-60, 293; unity of,

57

nature, human, 14, 312
Nazism, 12, 20, 38, 113, 234-

236; and science, 242
Necdham, Dr. J., 37
Newton, 73, 128, 241
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 1 8
night sky, 303

nightjar, South American, 146-
H7

noesis, 50 •»

noetic integrators, 55-60; micro-
cosms, 52, 86; systems, 51-3,
81, 86-7, 281; unity, 52

6

INDEX*

noocosm, 52
noogenetics, 5 1
noosystem, 52 *
novelty, in evolution, 246, 291
nucleoproteins, 136

orcWds, 151

Origin of Species, 41, 128

Painted Lady butterfly, 1 55, 158
Paleolithic, Upper, 43
Ptfey, Archdeacon, 15 1-2 %
Parazoa, 90
Pascal, 241, 247
Pasteur, 123
Pearson, # Karl, 130
P.E.P., B*port on World Popula-
tion and Resources, 200, 211
phenotype, 63

physics, evolution of, 42, 290

Picasso, 30711
Tplasmagenes, 135

Pliocene period, 47

polygenes, 135 1

population, 168-212, 306; in-
creases, 170-4, 1821 birth and
death rates, 175-6; expecta-
tion of life, 175; family
limitation, 176-9, 181; cycles,
1 85 ; birth-control, 1 79-80,
185; I ndonesm, 188-91;
Thailand, 19I-2; Fiji, 192-4;
Australia, 194-6; India, 203-
210

population policy, need of, 183-
186, 210-12, 306

progress: myth *of, 20-1; fact
of, 25-9; human, 34-40; bio-
logical, 21, 25, 102, 253, 291-
292

3

psychiatry, 264

psychological function of cultural

phenomena, 105-6

psychology, 62, 107, 286

Puertb Rico, 18 in
• 9

1

racialism, 18

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 28 m
Radl, 69-70

reality, 101, 251, 266-7
relativity, 42-3, 268
religion, 99, 1 17-19, 234-6, 242,
269-74, 281-6, 289, 309, 312
reproduction, 63
reptiles, 45, 89, 291
resemblance, cryptic, 1 37 fF. '
resources, world, 1 68 fF.
ritual, 1 1 3-1 5, 270, 281
Roman Catholic Church, 103,

2 3+> 2 37> , 28 35 and Wrth-
control, 179, 207
Roman civilization, 119, 175,
271

Royal Society, 255

Schopenhauer, 29

science, 12, 15-16, 54, 71,

106-7, I20 > l %%> 2 54"5» 2 74"
276, 288-90, 305, 309

scientific method, 240-1, 305.

Secondary (Mesozoic) Era, 35,
46, 291

selection, natural, 22, 30, 77;

and mimicry, 1 38-54
self-reproduction, 22, 49
shrike, 146

Simpson, G. G., 77, 89-90, 105
snakes, 149-50
societies, human, 80, 296-8
soma, 50, 65-7

7

INDEX

specialization, 31, 95, 258

speech, 49, 78

Spemann, 54

Spencer, Herbert, 94

spiders, 1375 mimicry in/ 143,

145-6, 151 r
Spinoza, 28
Spitsbergen, 156
Sumatra, 189-90 '
supernatural, 118-20, 282-6
symbols, 55

taxonomy, 89-90
temperature, 267-8
terminology, 97, 267-8
Thailand, ig # i-2
theology, 21, 281-4
thinking, new methods needed,
251-2

thought, 49, 253-4; new
systems of, 256, 259-62, 264

Toynbee, A. J., 92

transhumanism, 13-17, 260-2,
279, 294-301, 310-12

Unesco, 56, 168, 191, 311
U.N. Conference on World

Population, 168; on World

Resources, 168-9
U.N. Technical Assistance, 59,

199.3"
U.S.A.: 238, 2415 individualism,

37; expectation of life, 175;

population problems, 174-6;

energy consumption, 198-9;

love and sex, 228; world

leadership, 277-8

universe, 251-2

Upper Paleolithic, 43

U.S.SrR.: 38, 53, '113, 213;
biology in, 87"; population,
179, 306; freedom of belief
in, 234-5

values, 103, 188

variation: 22, 63-5; transmissible

and non-transmissible, 64-5
vertebrates, land, 46

r

weeds of flax, evolution of,
Weismann, 64-5, 129-30
Wenner-Gren Foundation, 61
Western World: 34, 53-4, 115,

245; unity, lack of, 96-7;

population increase,' 174-6;

love, 226-8; and European

thought, 251
Whig artistocracy, 53
Whitman, Walt, 222, 242, 247,,

267

wholeness, 9 psychological, 59,

265, 300-1
Whyte, L. L., 250
will, free, 28-9

Wordsworth, 222, 226, 301, 31 1
world development plan, 199
World Health Organization, 168,

183. 20 7> 3° 6
world-stuff, 169,, 290

worms, evolution of, 45

wryneck, 149-50

Young, J. Z., 70, 3©3n

zoology, 69-70

318

VruiUd in (uc.it Britain
it Hopetoun Street, Hlinburjji
by T mil A Constabli I id
Printers to the University of } dinburgh